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Mediation in Small Claims Court: Achieving Compliance Through Consent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Craig A. McEwen  and
Richard J. Maiman
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Abstract

In Maine defendants in small claims court are nearly twice as likely to comply fully with mediated outcomes as with judgments imposed by the court after adjudication. Some of the explanation can be attributed to specific features that are more common to mediated and negotiated settlements than to adjudicated outcomes. In addition, consensual processes lead to social psychological pressures for compliance that are not associated with authoritative judgments. Our findings point to the value of consent—the most central difference between mediation and adjudication—as an adjunct to command in promoting compliance with rules and orders.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , 1984 , pp. 11 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 by The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

*

Research for this article has been supported by a grant from the Law and Social Sciences Program of the National Science Foundation (SES-7908872). The authors wish to thank Richard Lempert, Colin Loftin, Walther Gottwald, Gary Marx, and Neil Vidmar for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

References

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Statutes Cited

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