The Inappropriate Imposition of Court-Ordered Mediation in Will Contests
Following the successful implementation of court-ordered mediation programs in divorce and family law cases, similar programs are being adopted to mandate the use of mediation in other areas of litigation. Complex emotional and personal issues can easily transform inheritance into a destructive process, and an increasing number of courts are ordering probate disputes and will contests to mediation. The freedom of the individual to designate his heirs is a foundational norm that permeates doctrine in the law of wills, and as a result, the idea of testator intent has reached near-mythical stature. Conversely, mediation shapes settlement without rigid deference to legal rules and often marginalizes the intent of the testator as an impediment to reaching agreement. Because the approach taken in mediation directly conflicts with the legal rules applied by the courts adjudicating those same cases, a legitimate question is raised as to whether or not instituting court-ordered mediation programs that mandate mediation in will contest cases is appropriate. The contention of this Article is not that mediation is inappropriately used by the parties to a will contest case, but instead that court-ordered mediation is inappropriate. Mandatory mediation imposes an obstruction on the right of access to the courts that is inappropriately imposed when the process contravenes the substantive law of the case. This Article proposes an easily-implemented legislative solution that resolves the conflict between law and process.
The effect of court-mandated mediation on the length of court proceedings in the Czech Republic
The article explores the use of mediation in custody and civil disputes in court practice in the Czech Republic. The option for a court to order mediation in a dispute was enabled by the Mediation Act of 2012, with the proclaimed benefit of shortening the length of the dispute. We put these claims to test using data provided by the Ministry of Justice of the Czech Republic based on the so-called statistical sheets of district and regional courts. The dataset covers over 2 million custody and civil disputes resolved between 2013 and 2018. Descriptive analysis reveals that the courts’ use of mediation is still sporadic and regionally clustered. Regression analyses show that, contrary to the expectations, the custody (civil) disputes with mandated mediation were on average 3 (2.5) times longer than their counterparts without mediation, after accounting for several control variables. This effect varies over time and with the dispute’s subject matter.
Hispanic marketing : connecting with the new latino consumer
* Cultural Marketing: A new understanding * The Composition of the Hispanic/Latino market * The Latino Essense of "Hispanic" * Language Considerations in Marketing to US Hispanics * Enculturation, Acculturation, and Assimilation: A Bicultural Horizon * Latino Subjective Culture: Insights for Positioning * Culturally Informed Research among Latinos * The U.S. Hispanic Marketing Industry * The Digital World of U.S. Latinos * Latino Consumers and the Future of U.S. Marketing