Dear Supporters:
As it's been about a week since I started the petition, I figured that an update would be in order.
In this regard, I have two items of great news to report:
1) Congratulations! Thanks to your help and support, we have reached 200 supporters!
Please continue to do everything and anything you can to share the petition with as many people as possible, even those who do not live in New York. As a reminder, the link to the petition is:
https://www.change.org/NY-ADR-Compensation
2) The leaders of the New York State Bar Association, New York City Bar Association, Nassau County Bar Association, and, of course, the New York County Lawyers Association, among others, have requested a meeting to discuss the issues raised by the petition.
In preparation for that meeting, which will likely take place early next week (i.e., the first week of May) and to eventually discuss the issues raised by the petition with legislators, I have started to compile a Table of State Neutral Compensation Statues, located at https://tinyurl.com/State-Neutral-Comp-Statutes.
Please feel free to help me fill out this table, which will be a phenomenal resource not only for New York practitioners but for practitioners as well as academics throughout the country, by adding in information for those states that are still blank (without deleting or otherwise compromising any information that's already there).
We've got a ways to go before this table is complete, but so far, some findings have been eye-opening.
For example, did you know that in Colorado, SMALL CLAIMS neutrals get paid up to $60/hr.? And if you mediate in Kentucky or Michigan, you are entitled to "reasonable compensation" as a matter of law? And that even the most populous state in the Union, California, which does have some courts that require "free time" to be given, has two statutes that provide for arbitrator and mediator compensation in certain cases at a rate of $150/day?
In addition, the great sate of Georgia has its OWN SUPREME COURT weighing in on the issue of neutral compensation as follows:
"Although the contribution of volunteers to ADR programs throughout the country is inestimable, the Georgia Supreme Court believes that the comprehensive system of statewide ADR services envisioned by these rules cannot be handled entirely by unpaid volunteers. This court is convinced that in order to build and maintain a statewide system of ADR services of the extent and quality desired, there must be mechanisms for compensating neutrals at appropriate levels. This court also believes that the Georgia ADR program will require a combination of volunteers, salaried in-house neutrals, and free market neutrals in order to meet the highly varied demands and circumstances of courts in urban, rural, and suburban areas."
Why should the neutrals of New York be denied compensation that their fellow neutrals in California, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan (and I'm sure many more states as the table is filled in) have been receiving for years???!
An ADR proceeding in any of these states is not qualitatively different with respect to compensation than one in New York, which has some of the most complex and intricate cases in the world.
Why are New York neutrals being treated differently? Why have they not been protected by law as their fellow neutrals in other states have? And why, unless and until an enabling statute is passed, is a not-too-subtle silent message being continuously sent to them that the valuable ADR work in which they engage is effectively worthless?
It's my hope that the meeting next week will begin to answer these vexing questions, which have bothered me and a number of my colleagues for a long time (and I hope bother you as well).
Until the next update, I wish you all the best, and remember the words of a famous Hanukkah song: "Kol Ehad Hu Ohr Katan, v'Chulanu Ohr Eitan - Every one is a small light, but together, we become an enormous one."
SHARE, PROMOTE, AND DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO GET WORD ON THE PETITION OUT TO ALL. 200 is only the beginning....
Respectfully yours,
Elan