Community Mediation Minnesota (CMM) is pleased to announce its pilot project to expand court mediation services throughout the state of Minnesota.
Community Dispute Resolution Programs in Minnesota are currently providing free mediation services for conciliation, housing, family, and harassment cases for five Judicial Districts and thirty-two counties in Minnesota. The use of Zoom technology has provided an excellent framework to expand mediation services to all ten Minnesota Judicial Districts.
Over the next three months, CMM will be working with partners to identify District and County Courts that will benefit from mediation services. Once the need for services is identified, CMM will work directly with District and County Courts to establish a streamlined process for incorporating mediation services. For Housing cases, mediation may be offered in pre-filing, summons, and/or adjournment. For harassment and/or conciliation cases, mediation may be beneficial as a way to expedite case backlogs. Best practices will be determined through joint collaboration with Courts, CMM, and other stakeholders.
The past year of experience with remote services has established a level of expertise with technology assisted mediation that will enable CMM to expand its community mediation services to include court referred mediations in any part of Minnesota. This expertise was especially beneficial in combining mediation services with the COVID-19 Housing Assistance Program (CHAP). During that time, CMM was able to provide services to nearly every county in Minnesota. CMM would like to take this opportunity to offer mediation throughout all ten Minnesota Judicial Districts.
As the Minnesota Legislature begins to release new statutory guidelines to ‘off-ramp’ Governor Walz’s Emergency Executive Order 20-14 (Suspension of Evictions), CMM has continued to consider how mediation services may provide solutions for housing cases. CMM understands the impact that this will have on our communities and is committed to working with partners across the state in developing scalable solutions.
CMM also sees opportunities to provide statewide court mediation services for conciliation, parenting time, and harassment cases. CMM looks forward to establishing new District Court relationships as it offers support to all ten Judicial Districts.