An Inquiry Into Mediator Ethics With The Help Of AI We published an inquiry into mediation ethics with the assistance of AI in 2025 in the last issue of California Litigation, the journal of the Litigation Section of the California Lawyers Association. With the permission of the journal and the CLA, it is republished here […]
How Might ABA Opinion 518 Impact California Mediation Practice? The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued Opinion 518 on October 15, 2025 to provide guidance on avoiding misleading communication by mediators. The Opinion distinguishes the mediator’s and advocate’s roles. Attorneys in negotiations puff all the time. Under Opinion 518, mediators are not […]
The Legislature Wants To Lessen The Judicial Burden of Lemon Law Cases. Lemon-law cases in California have shot up in number in recent years. Court filings rose from 15,000 to 25,000 from 2022 to 224. Under Assembly Bill 1755 (AB 1755), mediation between the consumer and the manufacturer must now occur before a suit can […]
Jeff Daar And Gary Benton Receive Awards For Past And Continuing Contributions To Alternative Dispute Resolution. The California Lawyers Association held its annual meeting this past weekend at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City. Jeff Daar and Gary Benton received awards for outstanding contributions to the profession and to ADR. Both Jeff and Gary […]
From the California State Bar Website: Alternative Dispute Resolution Certification Working Group. Purpose Effective January 1, 2025, new Business and Professions Code section 6173 requires the State Bar to create a voluntary certification program for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) firms, providers, and practitioners. This program aims to promote adherence to ethical standard for ADR […]
The Case Is Hohenshelt v. Superior Court. We have written about the Hohenshelt case twice in the Daily Journal. The first time around, the case was in the Court of Appeal. After it was decided by the California Supreme Court, with a majority opinion, some concurrence, and some disagreement, we wrote a second article for […]
The Case Is Morris S. Getzels v. State Bar. We are pleased to be able to give readers a direct link to our July 2, 2025 Daily Journal article about the Getzels case. The article is entitled “The curious exclusion of inactive attorneys from mediation.” And here is a link: https://calmediation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Getzels-DJ-7-2-25.pdf
Typepad announced rather precipitously that this blog would become extinct at the end of September 2025. Yikes! We had to scramble to migrate this blog from Typepad to a new platform. Since we have published this blog since 2012, and it has 1200 posts about California mediation and arbitration, it seemed worth expending some time, […]
A "Headless" PAGA Claims Is Permitted Pre-2024, But Now The Law Has Changed. Headless Statue of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Carole Raddato, photographer. A “headless” PAGA case is one in which the plaintiff abandons […]