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INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLETION OF DISTRICT COURT DISPUTE
RESOLUTION REPORT FORM
The District Court’s Dispute Resolution Report Form is intended primarily to be
completed online, printed out, and, if desired, “saved” to the user’s computer. It also may be
printed out in blank and completed by hand or by typewriter.
Users will find “drop-down lists” in the fields for program name, court division, and
reporting period (i.e., six-month or year-end report). Clicking on the appropriate name, court or
reporting period will automatically fill in the information in the particular field. Other
information should be typed in where indicated.
Please remember that these reports are intended to be cumulative from the beginning of
the reporting year to its end. This means that no total on your year-end report should be less than
any number on the six-month report. In other words, if 25 cases engaged in mediation during
the first six months of the reporting year, and 50 cases participated in the second six months of
the year, then the year-end report should list 75 (not 50) cases.
1
You may use the tab function to move easily from field to field. You may also turn the
field highlighting on or off by clicking on the “Highlight Fields” button at the top right corner of
the screen. You should never click on, or enter data into a “totals” field (e.g., Line 9, 16 or 50).
The program will automatically enter all of the totals. When you have finished entering all data,
Line 50 should always equal Line 1. If it does not, this indicates that there has been an error in
the information entered elsewhere on the form.
If you wish to save the form, which you must do if you intend to e-mail it, there are two
ways to do this.
1. Working and saving from the website. You may save either the blank template or the
completed form (after having entered your information on it) from the website to your hard drive
by clicking the button indicated in the screen shot below. If you would like to save a report on
which you have entered data, you must save it by a different name. Otherwise, the next time you
open the file, it will be blank.
1For purposes of these instructions, the word “mediation” should be read broadly to
include any form of court-connected alternative dispute resolution service unless otherwise
indicated.
To Print Form
To Save the Form
2. Working and saving from a stored file. If you are working from a file already stored
from the website on your hard drive and you wish to save a completed report, you must save it by
a different name, using the “save as” function in order to avoid overwriting the original file. The
best approach would be to open the file and to immediately use the “save as” function to rename
the document. The original file then will remain unchanged.
PLEASE NOTE: If you use the drop-down list to indicate the Reporting Period near the
top of the form and make a mistake by clicking on the wrong choice (most likely by having
clicked a choice under “6 Months” instead of “12 Months,” or vice versa), you will not be able to
change it back to a blank field. Instead, please use the choice that has only an asterisk, and then
enter the correct information under the appropriate heading.
In Section I, “TOTAL ADR CASES,” enter the total number of cases in which
participants actually engaged in mediation. Please do not include cases, referrals or screenings
that did not result in mediation. As you will see, this number must be repeated in the sections
that follow, on Line 9, Line 16, Line 34, and Line 50.
In Section II, “ADR CASES BY REFERRAL SOURCE,” please provide a breakdown of
the source of the referrals to mediation.
In Section III, “ADR CASES BY EVENT,” please provide a breakdown of the court
“event,”or stage, at which mediation occurred. In most District Court cases (usually small claims
or summary process), this most often will be the trial date.
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In Section IV, “ADR CASES BY CASE TYPE,” please indicate the number of
mediations conducted per case type.
Section V, “ADR OUTCOMES BY ADR PROCESS PROVIDED” calls for case
settlement information, broken down by ADR Process. In most instances, all of the information
will be listed in Lines 35 - 39, since most District Court approved programs only engage in
mediation for court-connected cases. For those programs that engage in conciliation, Lines 40 -
44 may be used to indicate the number of conciliated cases. Although at present there are no
District Court approved programs providing any other type of ADR process, Lines 45-49 have
been reserved for this possibility. Line 50 will automatically show the total number of
“outcomes.”
To complete the form, the Program Director or other representative’s name should be
typed into the specified field. Then, by clicking in the middle of the “date” field, a drop-down
list will allow you to indicate the date that the report is being submitted.
Clicking the hyperlink at the bottom of the form will take the user to the Trial Court’s
ADR page on the Internet. New copies of the form and of these instructions may be obtained
directly from the Trial Court’s website at that address.
Section VI, “COMPLAINTS RECEIVED,” calls for information regarding any
complaints received by programs.
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