Last fall, the Los Angeles County Superior Court instituted a volunteer mediation panel. The program is designed to help the court better manage its immense caseload by having some of these cases resolved before trial. As part of the program, mediators agree to volunteer three hours of their time to [Read More]
Last week, I posted a blog about the  California Supreme Court adopting a new Rule 8.3 (effective August 1,2023) entitled Reporting Professional Conduct as part of California's Rules of Professional Conduct. I must confess that I did not read the rule carefully enough. While subpart (a) does, indeed, require a [Read More]
On Valentine’s day, 2023, Assembly member Jesse Gabriel introduced AB 924 to be added as Section 1770 to the California Code of Civil Procedure. Entitled, Alternative dispute resolution: complaints, it currently reads: SECTION 1.  Title 11.5 (commencing with Section 1770) is added to Part 3 of the Code of Civil [Read More]
One of the most important aspects if not THE most important aspect about mediations is that they are confidential. What is said by the parties and/or mediator during a mediation stays there. This is absolutely necessary to encourage forthright disclosure, build trust and rapport among the parties, trust in the [Read More]
First and foremost, I would like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year; I hope that it proves to be a happy, healthy and very prosperous one for each of you. As I am still recovering from the holidays, I decided to post a blog about a very big [Read More]
Several weeks ago, I posted a blog about the enactment of Senate Bill 954 as Evidence Code section 1129. This new law effective January 1, 2019 requires counsel to obtain a written acknowledgement from their clients as soon as is reasonably possible after agreeing to mediation or to a mediation [Read More]
On September 11, 2018, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 954 which (when it takes effect on January 1, 2019) will require attorneys to inform their clients of the confidentiality restrictions related to mediation and to obtain their clients’ written acknowledgment that this disclosure has been made to them and that [Read More]
As some of you may recall, the California Law Revision Commission issued its Tentative Recommendation late last year to create an exception to mediation confidentiality. However, the proposed statute could not find a sponsor and so never got introduced into the legislature. Instead, Senator Wieckowski introduced SB 954 on January [Read More]
