Plead or go to trial? You may have more options. Lawyers representing youth charged with crimes may learn more about restorative justice, restorative practices and mediation by attending an upcoming virtual workshop, part of West Virginia Public Defender’s 2022 boot camp.

When clients want to avoid spending a lot of time and money in litigation, Early Neutral Evaluation provides a good option to resolve the case, fairly. In Early Neutral Evaluation, a neutral specially trained attorney evaluates the factual and legal issues in the civil case to arrive at a valuation. Early Neutral Evaluation may be employed in any civil case, including personal injury and small business matters.

We help small businesses resolve conflicts without incurring significant expenses and spending a lot of time in court. As a mediation attorney and mediator, we provide for mediation in the workplace. Whether you are interested in evaluative mediation or a more facilitative model, we have the skill to meet your needs.

With the economy changing so quickly, many readers find themselves in a situation when they need legal or mediation services, but cannot afford them. What can be done? In today’s post, I’ll cover three ways that legal services and mediation services may be provided in Virginia and West Virginia, pro bono, low bono, and on a sliding fee.

Last Friday, I attended a webinar produced by the American Bar Association on ODR, Online Dispute Resolution. The participants included Colin Rule of Tyler Technologies, Amy Schmitz a Professor of the University of Missouri, and Professor David Larson of Mitchell Hamline School of Law. Speakers addressed several important topics about Online Dispute Resolution that help me in moving much of my mediation practice online in the coming weeks.

The Joint Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee, comprising members of The Virginia Bar Association and Virginia State Bar published their quarterly newsletter this week and have included my short article on restorative justice. The article describes one case when I witnessed an offender apologize, sparking my interest in what was then referred to as Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP). It was a pleasure it is for me to share this experience and my own education on the topic with the extended alternative dispute resolution professionals in the Commonwealth.

Arbitration requires that the parties allow a neutral third party to make a decision, without due process protections, and usually is ‘binding” to require that the parties give up their right to go to court and agree to accept an opinion by a third party, who could be described as a “private judge.” Since some businesses, employers and consumer contracts require arbitration, I am including it in the series.

I have been on the road a lot this month! I really enjoyed a workshop with the Virginia Mediation Network in late September on The Alternatives in Alternative Dispute Resolution. In early October I had the pleasure of participating in a symposium on Restorative Justice at the University of Richmond. But today, I’m returning to my series on the options in Alternative Dispute Resolution. Today, I am going to address a few options, in more general terms. Some are early in development, and I have not fully described them. Others involve processes that many practitioners do not include under the ADR Umbrella.

Today, I’ll continue my series on the Alternatives in Alternative Dispute Resolution that I began earlier this summer after facilitating a workshop on this issue In July for the West Virginia State Bar. In September, I’ll be joining the Virginia Mediation Network to facilitate the workshop for that fabulous group of mediators. Today’s process is more common in Canada than in the areas where I practice, but Early Neutral Evaluation may save the parties a great deal of anguish, time and expense.

Legal conflicts run the gamut between a single contract that is entered into for one transaction between strangers to a family will contest and it is not surprising that different forms of ADR are suitable for different people, different kinds of conflicts and at different stages in both the legal and emotional part of the battle.  Today I am going to begin a ten part series of posts that will explore the alternatives in ADR. I’ll begin with processes that depend on a neutral facilitator such as mediation (including evaluative, facilitative, and transformative mediation), neutral evaluation, and arbitration.  I'll then turn to some processes that have components of ADR but do not require a neutral.  Finally will look at a few methods that don't fit neatly into any category.