Emergence of the Judge as a Mediator in Civil Cases

• NCJ Number: 98298
• Author(s): M Galanter
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 25 pages
• Sale Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Working paper 1984-5, an earlier version presented at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association, Denver, Colorado, June 3-5, 1983.

Annotation

Examinations of writings by judges and observers reveal that over the past 50 years American judges are increasingly inclined to participate actively in the settlement of civil cases.

Abstract

Settlement is commended both on administrative grounds of unburdening the courts and on grounds that it produces outcomes preferable to those produced by adjudication. Earlier reticence about acknowledging such participation has been replaced by acceptance of settlement promotion as a respectable, even esteemed, part of the judicial role. In comparison to the movement for conciliation that flourished in the early decades of this century, judicial mediation is not regarded as radically separate from adjudication. In two recent surveys of trial judges, only 21.8 percent described their typical posture as one of nonintervention in settlement discussions. Over three-quarters did typically intervene. In a study of Federal and State courts in five localities, 75 percent of Federal judges and 56 percent of State judges reported that they initiated settlement talks in jury cases. This shift to judicial activism received formal ratification in 1983 when Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure was amended to allow judges to consider and take action with respect to the possibility of settlement or the use of extra-judicial procedures to resolve the dispute. Thirty-one references are included. (Author abstract modified)