Miscellaneous

98% Success: Mediation in Delmarva

By Anne Skove, Esq.

First, a fun (if somewhat obvious) fact: the Delmarva peninsula takes its name not from your great aunt Delmarva, but from DElaware, MARyland, and VirginiA, the three states (OK, two states and a commonwealth) of which it consists.

Here's another fun fact about the area: in Worcester County, Maryland, a one-person mediation office (scroll down the link for info) has taken over 360 misdemeanor referrals in a three-year period. Of those, 218 went to mediation, and all but one of those was completely resolved by the process.

The savings to the county translates into fewer dollars spent by the prosecutor's office, police, and court. Start-up money for the program came from the ambitious but fun-loving Maryland Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO). The program hopes to be funded locally in the future.

Sure, mediation is nearly ubiquitous now, but that is not the case in less populated regions. Conflict resolution programs are also applied less often (so it seems) to misdemeanor cases.

See Mediation Program Keeps Worcester Cases out of Court, Brian Shane, Daily Times (March 21, 2008).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).