Civil Alternative Dispute Resolution Overview of Alternative Dispute Resolution

  Plaintiff
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UD: Landlord (Plaintiff) & Tenant (Defendant)

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Plaintiff: Pursuing a UD Action

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Defendant: Answering a UD Action
Plaintiff and Defendant: Settling

Civil Alternative Dispute Resolution

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  Mediation/ Evaluation
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ADR: What is ADR?
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This section tells you about:

What Is ADR?
Advantages of ADR
Alternatives to going to court
Local Rule on ADR

What Is ADR?

Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR" for short) is the common name for many different ways of settling a disagreement without suing in court.

ADR includes mediation, arbitration, neutral evaluation, special masters and referees, binding arbitration and settlement conference.
Advantages of ADR

ADR can work better than suing in several ways:
- ADR can save time.
  You can settle the problem in a few months, or even weeks. Going to court can take years.
- ADR can save money.
  The faster you settle, the less you usually pay your lawyer, the Court, and anyone else.
- In ADR you are more involved.
  Parties get a chance to talk about their concerns and control the outcome, instead of focusing only on legal rights.
- ADR can give you more control and is more flexible.
  You and the other parties choose the kind of ADR that you think will be best for you. You will have more control over the time, place and pace of the process.
- ADR can reduce stress.
  In ADR, the parties get to talk and work with each other. ADR can keep things from turning into a fight.
Surveys show that people who have used ADR were much more satisfied than people who went through a lawsuit.
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Alternatives to going to court

There are public and private mediation programs in our area that can help you solve your problem outside of court.

Here are some:

Office of Human Relations, a County program:		(408) 792-2300
(Neighborhood, landlord/tenant, small business/consumer, and others)
Project Sentinel (Sunnyvale housing issues):		(408) 720-9888
Los Altos Mediation Program:		(650) 949-5267
Santa Clara County Bar Association/Lawyer Referral Service:		(408) 971-6822
Palo Alto Mediation Program:		(650) 856-4062
Pro Bono Project (mostly family issues):		(408) 998-5298
Campbell Rent Mediation:		(408) 243-8565
Mountain View Mediation Program:		(650) 960-0495
Legal Aid Society:		(408) 283-1540

You can also look for a mediator in the phone book. Look under "Mediator". You can also check the Mediator Database at the ADR section of the Court's main website.

Binding arbitration is also a kind of ADR. It is sometimes called private arbitration. It is when the parties agree to have a third person, an arbitrator, decide their case instead of going to court.

The arbitrator becomes the judge, and the parties get to tell their side of the problem at a hearing. The arbitrator gives a written decision, which is final.

Binding arbitration is different from judicial arbitration. Judicial Arbitration is a Court-sponsored program where either party can reject the arbitrator's decision and go ahead with a trial. (To learn more, see Judicial Arbitration page.)

Local Rule on ADR

Santa Clara Superior Court believes ADR can help every case. The court has adopted Local Civil Rule 2A to encourage the parties to use ADR.
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