Statewide ADR Conference

Colorado Statewide ADR Conferences

The first annual Colorado Statewide ADR Conference was held at the Renaissance Hotel, Stapleton, in Denver on September 28, 2007. For the first time, the conference was an opportunity to bring organizations and individuals together to build a cohesive, strong voice for mediation and ADR in Colorado. These efforts were initiated by ODR, community mediation and restorative justice (RJ) groups, the ADR Section and the Continuing Legal Education arm of the Colorado Bar Association (ADR and CLE-CBA), and the Colorado Council of Mediators and Mediation Organizations (CCMO) as the first step of the “Mediation Excellence” initiative in Colorado.

In June 2006, representatives of these groups and others met to imagine what a statewide conference would look like. A variety of objectives emerged from that meeting: 1) To replace and enhance conferences and annual trainings by individual ADR organizations; 2) To collaborate with the Colorado ADR community to pursue mediation excellence in Colorado with the goal of raising the level of expertise in the state; 3) To promote the mediation profession and to develop a healthy ADR environment; 4) To showcase the great variety of ADR going on in the state; 5) To pool resources in the state and encourage greater networking; 6) To build a better mediator system for today and for the future.

In addition to ODR, CBA (CLE, ADR, Family Law, Litigation, and Labor Law sections), and CCMO; participating organizations include Colorado Judicial Institute (CJI), American Arbitration Association (AAA), Judicial Arbiter Group (JAG), Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services (FMCS), University of Denver Conflict Resolution Institute (DU-CRI), Forum on Restorative Community Justice (Forum), and Colorado Community Conflict Resolution Association (CCCRA). CLE-CBA is the administrative partner.

Highlights of the first conference: The First Annual Colorado Statewide ADR Conferences was a tremendous success, with over 320 people attending outstanding plenary and breakout sessions. It was a wonderful inauguration and helped move Colorado further along the path to Mediation Excellence, the theme of the first year’s conference. The numbers spoke to the tremendous efforts of the many people involved in planning the conference, as well as the thirst in Colorado’s ADR community for such events.

Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey participated on a panel on “Mediation and the Three Branches of Government” with State Representative Terrance Carroll (Chair of House Judiciary Committee) and a representative of Governor Bill Ritter’s office, moderated by Cynthia Savage. Luncheon keynote speaker Kenneth Feinberg, Special Master of the Federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, and appointed by Virginia Tech to direct distribution of $7 million donated to the school following the campus shootings in April, 2007 (serving both roles without pay), spoke on the unique use of mediation processes and skills in those roles. Tracks included family, civil/commercial, workplace, and community/RJ mediation. A plenary ethics panel of representatives from each of the four tracks discussed and answered questions on current ethical issues affecting both lawyer and non-lawyer mediators, including the CBA Ethics Opinion on collaborative law.

Planning for the second conference: Planning for the second Conference is underway. The tentative date and location are October 24 at the Renaissance Hotel, Stapleton, in Denver.