Mediation Center of Los Angeles, formerly Valley Bar Mediation Center

MCLA aims to reduce the burden on the court by settlling hundreds of lawsuits that are pending the LASC court system. MCLA also will substantially reduce the cost for mediations so that people without funds can afford to have their cases settled by competent mediators. We have in place a customized semi-automated case management system that has allowed us to administer the contract we received from the court in 2018 to provide online mediations. We will increase the number of mediators to meet the demand and build out our current case management system to accommodate hundreds of new cases so we will be better able to serve clients and the court. Under the new contract which we have been awarded, we will be receiving hundreds of cases a week. Cases will be directly referred from the Court to MCLA and to any mediator a litigant chooses. We are the only court sponsored referred organization

MCLA is expanding its mediator panel to meet the increased referral of cases from judges. All mediators will be carefully screened to make sure that they qualify to serve on this elite panel of experienced mediators, both lawyers and non-lawyers. We will also increase the capacity of our current case management system by increasing the automation using AI. This will permit us to refer substantial number of cases to our panel of mediators. MCLA is waiting for the court to release the exact terms of the new referral contract, so we are now developing a strategic plan for substantial expansion. We have prepared detailed financial projections and statement of work that we have submitted to the court and which must remain confidential until the court issues the final contract with all the terms and conditions. We have had numerous planning session to develop strategies that will meet the increase number of cases and remove hundreds of cases from the court's pending dockets.

When the number of cases increased under the 2018 Court contract called the Vendor Resource Progrram, MCLA invested in a sophisticated, customized and semi-automated system (using Zoho as the main platform) to allow a part time employee administer all of the incoming inquiries and referrals to qualified mediators. This program has been very successful in meeting the Court's requirements under the Vendor Resource contract which is now all conducted online using zoom as our online teleconference program which we first used in 2018 and since the pandemic, all mediations are conducted online - which is much more convenient, time and cost savings, and is very effective in getting settlements. AS stated, we now have 22 mediators on our panel and we expect to double that number as demand requires. We use volunteers and part time staff to keep the costs of operation very low - we have no rent, no overhead, only website maintanence, insurance, accounting and our case management system.