The Ongoing Debate about Mediation in the Context of Domestic Violence: A Call for Empirical Studies of Mediation Effectiveness

In Part I, this Article will explore the potential challenges of mediating family law cases involving domestic violence, including definitional challenges, process issues, outcome issues, and public policy implications. Concerned about the implications of this trend for domestic violence victims, state legislatures, courts, and mediation programs have sought to develop improved processes for fair and safe family law mediations, and the Article will analyze the most common of those processes in Part II. Additionally, Part III will describe what scholars have done to determine the effectiveness of mediation programs in addressing domestic violence issues and will advocate further empirical research in this area. Finally, Part IV will propose a potential study to be implemented on a widespread basis to evaluate mediation effectiveness where parties have a history of domestic violence.