Law Commons^™

Objecting To Court Ordered Mediation, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

Maryland judges have wide discretion to refer parties to mediate a variety of civil matters. Title 17 of the Maryland Rules, enacted in 1998, governs mediation of civil cases in the circuit courts. These rules are supplemented by Maryland Rule 9-205, which addresses mediation of child custody and visitation disputes. Although these rules define mediation and address mediator qualifications in some detail, they say very little about either a party's right to object to mediation or the court's authority to compel participation in mediation.

Given that the mediation rules are relatively new and mediation orders would generally be considered interlocutory, …

The Market For Justice, The "Litigation Explosion," And The "Verdict Bubble": A Closer Look At Vanishing Trials, Frederic N. Smalkin, Frederic N.C. Smalkin

All Faculty Scholarship

Recently, a respected jurist has lamented the declining number of federal jury trials. Chief Judge William Young of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, writing in the Federal Lawyer, pointed out that jury trials in federal civil cases declined 26% in the decade between 1989 and 1999, which he attributed to four factors: the district court judiciary's loss of focus on the core function of trying jury cases; the business community's loss of interest in jury adjudication (opting out of the legal system altogether in favor of arbitration); Congress's marginalizing the district court judiciary; and the …