On April 11, 2024, the American Bar Association Dispute Resolution Section honored me with its D’Alemberte Raven Award. The award is given “in recognition of development of new and innovative programs, demonstrated improvements in service, demonstrated improvements in efficiency, research and published writings, and development of continuing education programs.” The following are the remarks I made at the award ceremony. Susan M. Yates gives a speech after being presented with the D’Alamberte Raven Award at the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution 2024 Spring Conference. Than ..read more

RSI has completed the first phase of the ODR Party Engagement (OPEN) Project! We are excited to share what we have learned from our research and to roll out new downloadable tools designed to support courts. A summary of our research, our full report and the tools can be found in a new section of our website. The Study For this extensive study, RSI conducted six focus groups with a total of 41 participants from three areas of the country. Our aim was to uncover barriers to using court-referred text-based ODR (online dispute resolution) and ways courts can address these barriers. More inf ..read more

In 2023, RSI continued to dig deep into identifying the variables that make court-related alternative dispute resolution (ADR) effective. We did this through innovative research and day-to-day program implementation. Today, we are pleased to share a summary of that work in Resolution Systems Institute’s 2023 Annual Report, which focuses on the elements of effective ADR. We hope you’ll check it out! RSI is fascinated and inspired by all that our work has taught us. And we are grateful to have the privilege of continuing to examine the elements of effective court-related ADR as a means of ..read more

Resolution Systems Institute (RSI) recently welcomed two new members to its Board of Directors! Texas A&M Law Professor Nancy A. Welsh and University of Denver Law Professor Oladeji M. Tiamiyu attended their first Board meeting in February, and RSI is so grateful for their service. We’d like to help you get to know them, beginning this month with a Q&A with Prof. Tiamiyu.   Oladeji Tiamiyu is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Denver (DU) and an Expert Adviser to early-stage ventures at Harvard’s Innovation Lab. Before joining DU, he was a clinician ..read more

RSI is thrilled to share the news that the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution (ABA DR Section) has chosen our own Susan M. Yates to receive its prestigious D’Alemberte Raven Award this year! Resolution Systems Institute Executive Director Susan M. Yates The ABA DR Section will present the award at its 2024 Dispute Resolution Spring Conference, taking place April 10–13 in San Diego. The D’Alemberte Raven Award is the premier award in the field of alternative dispute resolution. It is presented to an individual or organization that has contributed significantly to the dispute ..read more

In an eviction courtroom filled mostly with self-represented defendants, the confusion and fear can be palpable: fear over what the future holds, and confusion about the process and the parties’ options. But some of this anxiety can be mitigated. Represented or not, parties should always have access to the information they need to understand what is happening in their court case. One way to help reduce the confusion and fear is to provide easily accessible court forms with instructions in plain language. A small group of individuals is working toward precisely this goal, and recently I began v ..read more

At my first job, working at a Dairy Queen, I learned a lesson that has been proven time and again during my career. The people you work with make or break any job. Applying that lesson to being executive director at RSI, it is easy to see why this has been the job of a lifetime. The people who work at and with RSI are amazing. They are smart, hardworking and dedicated to using ADR to make the civil court system work better for people with the least resources. That’s one big reason it is bittersweet to leave RSI after 27 years. But I’m also excited about my next phase. I am going to work in m ..read more

RSI administers an eviction mediation program in Kane County, Illinois. Every quarter, we provide a report to the court on the participants’ experience in mediation based on their responses to a post-mediation survey. Between July 1, 2023, and September 30, 2023, 174 eviction mediations were held in the 16th Judicial Circuit of Illinois (Kane County). After every mediation, participants were invited via email or text to complete an online survey about their experience; not all of the participants completed surveys. In our latest survey report, we examined participant responses from those three ..read more

RSI recently completed an evaluation of New Hampshire’s statewide Eviction Diversion program. Begun in 2021, this voluntary program provides landlords and residential tenants the opportunity to mediate before a landlord/tenant eviction case is filed. We were asked to evaluate program use, mediation agreement rates, and the time from initial contact to case closure. The evaluation period ran from October 1, 2022, through August 31, 2023. We found overall that the program was successful at reaching landlords and tenants around the state, as well as at helping tenants and landlords to avoid evict ..read more

More than two years ago, amid the looming threat of a rush of evictions as Illinois prepared to end its pandemic-era eviction moratorium, RSI partnered with the circuit court in Kane County to create a mediation program. It was free of cost to both tenants and landlords. The program’s impact has been impressive. Since the eviction moratorium ended in October 2021, the Kane County Eviction Mediation Program has helped over 1,500 households avoid the traumatic effects of a sheriff’s eviction. Meanwhile, the program’s connections to rental assistance and legal and financial counseling have made i ..read more