Law Commons^™

Insights Into Due Process Reform: A Nationwide Survey Of Special Education Attorneys, Jane R. Wettach, Bailey K. Sanders

Faculty Scholarship

The federal law that guarantees an appropriate and inclusive education for children with disabilities relies on private enforcement; parents concerned about the inadequacy of their children’s education can take advantage of an administrative hearing to seek resolution of disputes with the child’s school district. While conceived in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as a prompt and informal tool, evidence suggests that special education due process hearings have become overly complex, prohibitively expensive, and excessively lengthy, thus limiting their accessibility and usefulness as an enforcement mechanism.

Despite numerous studies highlighting the flaws of special education due process, few have …

What Difference Does Adr Make? Comparison Of Adr And Trial Outcomes In Small Claims Court, Lorig Charkoudian, Deborah Thompson Eisenberg, Jamie Walter

Faculty Scholarship

This study compares the experience of small claims litigants who use alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) to those who proceeded to trial without ADR. ADR had significant immediate and long-term benefits, including improved party attitudes toward and relationship with each other, greater sense of empowerment and voice, increases in parties taking responsibility for the dispute, and increases in party satisfaction with the judiciary. Cases that settled in ADR also were less likely to return to court for an enforcement action within the next year.