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The Designated Jurist
At its core, the New York program, called judge-directed negotiation, is simple: When a medical malpractice lawsuit is filed, a judge with expertise in medical matters becomes the point person for that case. He or she supervises the entire process and brings the parties together as often as necessary to discuss the case and help broker a settlement.
This is very different from what typically happens now: The pre-trial discovery phase, in which depositions are taken and other evidence is gathered, sometimes drags on for months or even years. A number of judges may be involved over that period, and with no one person pushing the parties toward resolution, serious settlement discussions generally don't happen until late in the process, often after a court date has been set.
A judge overseeing the entire case can make sure the parties don't dawdle over such things as procedural meetings to set up discovery dates. From the beginning, that designated jurist can delve into the case with an eye toward settlement, says Judge Douglas E. McKeon, an administrative judge in the Supreme Court of Bronx County, who pioneered this approach in 2002. He discovered that "if you created a process that people knew had the potential to get a case settled sooner rather than later for significant sums of money, they came in and they were ready to talk," he says.
The story can be found here.
