March 26, 1999

NEWS RELEASE

Pierce County's successful Family Law Mediation Days Project will be held April 21-23 at the County-City Building. The project is conducted jointly by Pierce County Superior Court, Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association and Pierce County Center for Dispute Resolution. Experienced family law attorneys will mediate issues in pending family law cases during three-hour blocks of time. The mediations will be held in courtrooms in the County-City Building or at the Center for Dispute Resolution, 705 S. 9th St., Tacoma. Family Law Mediation Days has been a joint project of the Pierce County Superior Court, the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association and the Center for Dispute Resolution since September 1996. The purpose of the project is to expedite resolution of pending cases. The project is conducted during the spring and fall.

Participants in the project have rated the mediations highly with between 68 percent and 74 percent of the mediated cases resulting in settlement agreements. In order to encourage the use of this mediation process, the Superior Court judges have agreed that mediation of a case will meet the settlement conference requirement of the local court rules. Mediation can be requested by calling the Center for Dispute Resolution at 253-572-3657. "The feedback we received from the participants and the mediators suggests the mediation was very helpful in resolving numerous issues and that the parties who could not settle at least made significant headway toward ultimate resolution of the case," said Judge Karen Strombom.

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