Campagnone

— The relatively recent advent of court-ordered mediation of certain cases on appeal has been a resounding success. For such cases in the Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, mediation services are furnished by the court, without cost, to the parties for a period of four hours. If the matter is not resolved within that time, the parties and the mediator may agree to continue the mediation at the parties’ expense through a fee agreement with the mediator. To maintain its confidentiality, the mediation is administered by a mediation program coordinator, using private volunteer mediators in facilities that are separate from the court.

At last count, the parties in over 50 percent of the matters ordered to mediation in the Third Appellate District have settled their cases prior to the preparation of the appellate record, briefing, and oral argument. By doing so, they saved substantial time and expense, achieved a result acceptable to each party, and moved on with their lives or businesses rather than having prolonged the litigation. The court has also benefited by the fact its resources that otherwise would be devoted to those matters are being used to promptly resolve…