Lessons From the ABA’s Excellent Report on Mediator Techniques
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The ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Task Force on Research on Mediator Techniques recently released an excellent report really worth reading. It should be of value to anyone interested in mediation. It also provides useful lessons about what we can learn about ADR from empirical research.
The Task Force identified 47 studies from the past four decades with empirical data analyzing effects of particular mediator actions on certain mediation outcomes. Eight of these studies involved a process instead or in addition to mediation. “The studies covered a range of dispute types, including general civil, domestic relations, labor-management, and community mediation as well as other disputes. A majority of the studies involved court-connected mediation and a single mediator, but there was substantial variation in these and other aspects of the mediation context and mediator characteristics across the studies. … In addition to these differences, the studies also differed in whether they examined specific mediator actions or mediator approaches comprised of multiple actions; how those actions or approaches, as well as outcomes, were defined and measured; and the data sources and research methodology used. This variation contributed to differences in findings across the studies and made apples to apples’ comparisons challenging, making it difficult to draw broad conclusions about the effects of mediator actions.”
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