Adr in Federal Court: The View from Brooklyn

The Eastern District of New York (EDNY) offers both voluntary mediation and mandatory arbitration with a right to a trial de novo. The district once provided early neutral evaluation as well, but discontinued it because of lack of demand. Approximately 10 percent of all civil cases filed in the district are referred to court-annexed alternative dispute resolution, with a settlement rate of over 50 percent. An ADR administrator manages each program, working closely with an oversight judge selected by the district's chief judge. Because of limited funding, the program operates without support staff and tries to wring every last drop of efficiency from technological advances, such as Internet postings, electronic case filing, and computer-generated notices. Although the district has a crowded docket, the purpose of ADR is not simply to ease congestion. Quite to the contrary, its primary goal is to offer litigants a fair, inexpensive, and efficient means of settling a dispute that they were unable to solve on...