The Better Business Bureau of Akron has been chosen by the Summit County Juvenile Court as a provider of mediation services. It may seem a bit odd for a business organization to be dealing with legal issues, but it is a natural outgrowth of the BBB’s arbitration division.
“This is really an expansion of our role as a problem solving dispute entity for the community,” says Edward Pierce, director of mediation services for the BBB. The bureau has been an arbitrator for businesses since the late ’60s.
Judge Judith Hunter says that among the factors that led to the inception of the new program was the Supreme Court’s encouragement of lower courts to lean more on mediation. The Summit County Juvenile Court was also in a crisis with too little space for the increasing case load. The court settles more than 15,000 cases a year.
Under the new mediation program, parties involved will meet with a mediator at the BBB offices. After the mediation, a report will be sent back to the court.
The kinds of offenses the BBB will mediate include minor misdemeanors, neighborhood disputes, dependency, neglect and custody cases and cases dealing with unruly or incorrigible children. “We do not envision using this program with serious felony offenders or serious personal offenses,” says Hunter.
“We can not only help the parties with the problems they are having now,” says Ed Peirce, BBB director of mediation services, “we will provide a model for other problems they will have further on.”
The court sent out 23 requests for proposals for mediation services. The BBB was chosen because of its large, diverse group of mediators and its provision for a mediator training program.
“We aren’t looking to make a lot of money off of this,” Pierce says. “We are hoping to have our expenses met.”
This is the first program of its type in Ohio and is being looked at as the prototype.
