ACR Resolution on the Uniform Mediation Act (UMA)

Passed on April 20, 2002

Resolved, that the Association for Conflict Resolution conditionally approves the Uniform Mediation Act (UMA) promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) in 2001. The UMA is an appropriate Act for those States desiring to adopt the specific substantive law suggested therein provided that the following modifications are made.

1. CONFIDENTIALITY: The Act should provide broader protection for the confidentiality of mediation communications and extend confidentiality beyond the protections provided in the UMA for judicial, administrative, arbitral or other adjudicative processes. We recommend that Section 8 of the Act be expanded to provide that mediation communications are confidential and are not to be disclosed by mediation participants outside a mediation proceeding, unless otherwise agreed to by the parties. In addition, there should be appropriate exceptions to this general rule of confidentiality for such purposes as reporting threats of violence and complying with open meeting laws and existing mandatory reporting requirements (as may exist for reporting abuse, neglect, abandonment, exploitation of vulnerable persons).

2. IMPARTIALITY: The Act should insure that parties are entitled have a mediation conducted by an impartial mediator. We recommend that states include the bracketed language set out as Section 9(g): "A mediator must be impartial, unless after disclosure of the facts required in subsections (a) and (b) to be disclosed the parties agree otherwise."

3. CHILD PROTECTION MEDIATION PRIVILEGE: The Act should provide a privilege for mediation communications in child protection mediations as permitted in the UMA. We recommend that Section 6(7) should be modified to read, "sought or offered to prove or disprove abuse, neglect, abandonment, or exploitation in a proceeding in which a child or adult protective services agency is a party unless the child [or adult] protection case is referred by a court to a mediation and a public agency participates."

The modifications as listed above, in the opinion of ACR, will enhance the utility of the UMA and not detract from the uniformity of the Act. ACR believes there are additional concerns with the Act and recommends that individual states carefully review the implications of UMA provisions when considering the UMA for adoption in a given state. For assistance in this review process, ACR recommends that states review the eleven UMA Principles previously adopted by ACR. For further information concerning ACR's position on the UMA, please contact the ACR UMA Official Observers: Dennis Sharp, Esq. or Gregory Firestone, Ph.D.