The Tennessee ADRC has been in place almost two and one-half years. During that time it has struggled over questions regarding training, mediator credentials, ethics in mediation, and the role of the advocate during mediation. Many of its decisions have been codified in Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 31 as amended.

The commission has been focused on developing a viable mediation presence in Tennessee courts. To that end, it approved mediation training courses that met a specified curriculum, distributed training information, and worked with the Tennessee Judicial Conference to encourage referrals of cases to mediation.

As of May 15, a total of 431 mediators have been approved as Rule 31 Neutrals. Of these, 254 was approved as general civil mediators, 77 were approved as family mediators, and 100 were approved for both general civil and family cases.

The commission recently published a brochure on mediation that is being distributed to the court clerks. It is designed for litigants to acquaint them with the process and to encourage them to consider using mediation. The brochure, as well as approved training information, will soon be available on TBA Link. We encourage you to freely download and distribute the brochure.

Those of you who have been approved as Rule 31 mediators will receive a notice in the fall regarding renewal. In addition to a renewal fee of $100, we will be seeking statistical data from you regarding the number of Rule 31 mediations you have completed. Increased empirical data concerning the number of referrals to mediation and the number of mediations completed is a major goal of the commission. We need your assistance to confirm or disprove our feeling that mediation is alive and well and growing in Tennessee.

The next step for the commission is to develop a set of protocols for the other ADR techniques listed in Rule 31. To this end, the commission has been meeting to discuss the extent to which the remaining techniques require specific training or credentials. The commission anticipates finalizing this part of the rule by the end of the year.

A recent development in Rule 31 mediation is a pilot project in the Western Grand Division. Justice Janice Holder, who is the court liaison with the commission, has established a mediation project for workers compensation cases from that division that are pending before the Supreme Court. She recently sent a letter to all Rule 31 mediators residing in the Western Grand Division inviting them to participate in the pilot as volunteers. Her invitation was enthusiastically received and the pilot is up and running. Approximately 24 cases will be selected for mediation with a view to resolve the cases prior to oral argument. Attorneys in the cases will be given the list of volunteer mediators, and will be assigned a mediator if they cannot agree on one. Questions concerning the appropriateness of a case for mediation will be resolved by conference call.