Columbia Law School. Photo: Bruce Gilbert

Judges in New York are hitting the books and heading back to school to prepare for an incoming initiative that will require most civil litigants to try resolving their cases through mediation.

A handful of jurists, mostly from the New York City Civil Court, sat alongside students at Columbia Law School last month to brush up their knowledge on mediation, and how it's used.

That training was held over two weeks at the Columbia Law School Mediation Clinic, which was the first institution to deliver training to judges this year in preparation for the state's initiative on presumptive ADR, or alternative dispute resolution.

Professor Alexandra Carter, the former director of clinical education at Columbia Law School, leads the training every semester. When officials from the state Office of Court Administration asked if she would be open to having the judges sit in this year, she jumped at the idea.

"I was really impressed because here you have some really senior judicial leaders, who have been on the bench since I matriculated from Columbia Law as a student, coming back to model learning and really immerse themselves in mediation," Carter said.

Five judges signed up for the training, along with Lisa Denig, who's special counsel for ADR Initiatives at OCA.

Among those jurists were Judge Anthony Cannataro, the administrative judge of the New York City Civil Court.

"The reason why I went is because I'm the person responsible for rolling out the ADR plan in the New York City Civil Court, and mediation is certainly a big part of ADR," Cannatarro said. "I wanted to increase my knowledge of that."

He was joined at the training by Justices Debra Samuels and Carol Sharpe, both from the New York City Civil Court, Bronx Housing Court Justice David Bryan and Westchester Surrogate's Court Justice Brandon Sall.

Carter said it's common for her students to be paired with professionals outside Columbia Law School when she holds the training each semester. People regularly attend from the Civilian Complaint Review Board, for example, and they've had attendees from the United Nations.

"I think it really makes it a rich experience for both the students and the outside professionals to be partnered together and see different ways of looking at problems," Carter said.

But this was the first time so many senior and judicial administrative leaders attended the training, she said. Despite their attendance, Carter said she chose not to alter the format of the training.

"It was a wonderful experience because the judges brought so much knowledge to bear," Carter said. "So, the discussion was elevated but we teach the same skills, the same process, and the same values no matter who is in the room."

Cannatarro said judges who've spent years on the bench without training in mediation might have a different view of what the practice actually is. That's another part of what fueled his interest in attending the training. Cannatarro said he'd previously been told by mediation experts that what he does, in court, is an entirely different procedure than what's practiced in alternative dispute resolution.

"I wanted to understand the difference between the traditional form of mediation, how it's envisioned by the experts in that field versus what I do day-to-day on the bench," Cannatarro said. "It was, actually, tremendously different from what I do."

The training course isn't just informational; it also provides students and others with the first part of their credentials to mediate in New York state. The training is held over two weeks for a total of about 35 hours for participants.

Carter said anyone taking the course, including the judges, learn just about everything about the practice, including the stages of mediation, the component skills, the goals of the process, and the ethical obligations of mediators.

"It's a soup to nuts training, so everything from before we sit down, the moment we're told we're mediating the case, all the way through how you write a mediation agreement, how that's enforced, and how we thank the parties," Carter said.

A lot of that includes practice. For about half the course, attendees are practicing the skills they're learning from the course, Carter said. Judges were paired, at times, with students from Columbia Law School and had coaches available to guide them through the process.

"It's that type of hands-on approach that we find is really the best for training mediators, because some of the best learning takes place in that moment," Carter said.

It's not the first time judges within the state court system have been trained in mediation, but Cannatarro said he hopes other jurists will sign up for a similar course as the state begins its implementation of presumptive ADR.

"Hopefully we'll have a lot of judges who will have taken this training," Cannatarro said.

Carter said she would welcome any judge that wants to take the course at Columbia, which will offer the training again in January and each semester thereafter.

Implementation of the state's ADR program is underway now for portions of the local plans, according to a spokesman for OCA. The remaining portions of the plans are being finalized.

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