Mediation has been used as an alternative form of dispute resolution in the United States since the 1960s, but legal and societal changes in the last few years have changed the way local mediators practice their craft.

Elmira Barrow, coordinator of both the Carroll County Mediation Center and the Coweta Judicial Circuit Mediation Program, has been working in mediation for the last 12 years. According to Barrow, the United States Supreme Court created a special commission during the 1960s to find ways to handle the social unrest of the era through means other than law enforcement. The commission came up with six alternatives, mediation being the mildest form of dispute resolution. In 1990, the Georgia Supreme Court adopted the same six measures as the U.S. Supreme Court, and by the mid-1990s, Carroll County’s Chief Magistrate Judge Richard Smith decided to implement a mediation program.

Today Carroll County has around 35 registered neutrals who have voluntarily gone through extensive and costly training through the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution, a prerequisite for becoming a mediator. Medication cases are referred to the Carroll County office from five courts, and the mediation rooms at the office are often booked by up to nine appointments daily.

“There are some cases that are just best settled with a negotiated agreement, because the parties leave with both sides feeling that their needs have been answered,” Barrow said.

The mediation center gets cases from five different courts, Probate Court, State Court, Superior Court, Magistrate Court and Juvenile Court, either when judges refer cases to mediation or when the parties involved with the case request it. The center sees a vast variety of cases come through its doors, everything from landlord/tenant disagreements and child custody disputes to unruly juvenile offenders. The mediation program also helps to keep many cases from ever having to be tried in court. Barrow estimates that 70 to 90 percent of cases that undergo mediation never have to go before a judge.

Cynthia Langley has seen the mediation program at work from both sides of the fence, serving as both coordinator of the Carroll County Juvenile Drug Court and as a part-time mediator for juvenile cases. Langley said that giving both victims and offenders input into the outcome of a case often provides for more satisfactory solutions for both parties.

“I think it lowers the recidivism rate, especially with kids, because being able to see the effects of what they do, how it affected the other people involved in the situation, it makes some kids become more thoughtful in the future,” she said.

Though many aspects of mediation have remained the same through the years, a number of external factors have influenced the process. Barrow said that one major change came in January of 2007 when Georgia legislature adopted new child support guidelines that changed child support from a percentage paid from the non-custodial parent’s earnings to an income shares model that takes both parents’ incomes into account and derives from both in a more balanced manner.

“That has caused some major changes, because what you have now is both parents contributing,” Barrow said. “Rather than just one parent paying, you have both parents. It’s according to their incomes.”

Barrow said that in addition to increasing the number of cases mediators are now responsible for, the child support change also changed the way mediators think about the mediation process.

“It’s taken a lot of education from the mediators and the attorneys and the judges,” Barrow said. “It has been an educational experience for everybody and provided a different way of thinking for parenting children. The [child support split] always looks at the best interest of the child, and for me, it’s provided more ways ... that best serve this child in this particular situation.”

According to Barrow, new child support laws have also forced mediators to become more technology-savvy, as the formula that determines what amount each parent owes in child support is now derived through a Web-based program.

Barrow said the fact that more women work out of the home today than in previous decades and that the gap between male and female salaries probably contributed to the change in child support laws. Similarly, societal changes have led to an increase in other types of cases at the mediation office.

“Changing times, economy and social roles are affecting an old institution,” Barrow said.

The two types of cases Barrow reported seeing a dramatic increase in over the past few years are family and neighborhood disputes. She said family disputes typically occur when family members borrow money from one another or go into business together, or in the case of domestic violence. Neighborhood disputes often involve small quarrels among residents involving issues like animals or infringing on another’s property. Barrow said that in the past, neighbors felt more comfortable getting to know one another and forming long-term bonds that may have eased communication.

“Now they’re more tentative about approaching their neighbor about a barking dog or shrubbery blocking their view,” she said. “That’s what is truthfully the cause of this. You’re afraid that you could be perceived as someone threatening.”

Dr. Anne Richards, a former University of West Georgia professor, became a registered neutral in 1997 and currently handles some of the mediation program’s Magistrate Court cases. Richards said she has definitely seen more neighborhood disputes, many involving animals, lately than she has in years past. Though she only mediates occasionally now, she also reported seeing a higher number of mediation cases in general.

“There’s more knowledge among the general public about mediation and some of its benefits, and some people request mediation,” she said. “Besides that, some of the judges are finding it very helpful.”

Despite every-growing case loads and changes that keep mediators constantly learning new things, Barrow said she loves her job and the satisfaction she and other mediators gain by helping others gain closure.

“The people that come in here and bring their expertise from their backgrounds are volunteering their services to the courts to help the community with people that need resolution of their disputes, to get them back to some semblance of order in their lives,” she said.