An Evaluation of Mediation and Early Neutral Evaluation Under the Civil Justice Reform Act

The Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 (CJRA) required each federal district court to develop a case management plan to reduce costs and delay. The legislation also created a pilot program to test six principles of case management, and required an independent evaluation to assess their effects. This report is one of four documents describing the evaluation, which was conducted by the RAND Institute for Civil Justice. The report describes an assessment of the effects of six different alternative dispute resolution (ADR) programs that included mediation and early neutral evaluation. The study found that, once litigation had begun, referral to ADR was not a panacea, nor was it detrimental. Neither time nor costs nor lawyer views of satisfaction or fairness changed significantly as a result of referral to any of these programs; however, lawyers and litigants who participated in the programs liked them. The only statistically significant finding was that cases referred to ADR were more likely to have a monetary outcome. See also MR-800-ICJ, MR-801-ICJ, and MR-802-ICJ.