MassUMA

Click here to find a document, submitted by the UMA Working Group's Legislative Committee, which provides an overview of the modifications made by individual states who have formally adopted the UMA.

Currently, nine states have formally adopted the UMA and made modifications. They include the District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, and Washington.

The attached document includes the original text of the Uniform Mediation Act and the modifications made by each state, organized by section. Of the seventeen sections in the UMA it looks as though the most frequently modified sections were the definitions, scope, exceptions, prohibited mediator reports, and disclosure of conflicts of interest sections. You can find individual charts for each of the nine states at www.mwi.org/uma.

Should you have questions, please contact me or any member of the Legislative Committee.

Dear UMA Working Group Members:

The following is an update from the UMA Working Group's Legislative
Committee. The Legislative Committee is responsible for providing
information to the members of the UMA Working Group for consideration as we
work together to create an effective legislative strategy. We'd appreciate
if you would review the email below and the attached documents in advance of
the UMA Working Group Meeting on April 26th at FMCS (see www.massuma.com for
more information).

As you know, a draft version of the UMA is pending in the Massachusetts
Legislature with the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development as
House Bill 1814. Based on conversations with the Joint Committee's legal
counsel, the Legislative Committee was informed that the Joint Committee
will meet in late April to schedule hearings on pending bills, including the
UMA. There is a good possibility that there will be a hearing on the UMA in
June. Although the hearing date is not set, the Legislative Committee
believes it is in the interest of the Working Group to be prepared for a
hearing sooner than later.

Given this potential timeline, the Legislative Committee recommends that the
UMA Working Group discuss and prepare information to be shared at the
initial Joint Committee hearing. In preparation for our meeting this
Thursday, we propose the following three action items for your review and
consideration:

1. We ask the Working Group to submit the correct UMA language instead of
HB1814 which was filed in error. This could be in the form of the original
UMA as written by the drafters.

2. We ask that all hearings on the UMA be postponed until after September so
that the UMA Working Group can spend the summer months engaging in a
collaborative process that produces a version of the UMA that the greater
ADR community will support.

3. The Legislative Committee also recommends the Working Group provide the
Joint Committee with a document reflecting the Working Group's efforts thus
far, including an overview of who is part of the UMA Working Group (i.e.,
identify all key stakeholders within the ADR Community) and let the Joint
Committee know the Working Group's plan for creating a revised UMA. This
overview may take the form of a "process report" (i.e., how we plan to do
our work over the summer) or it may include an overview of issues that are
currently under discussion. Whatever the outcome, which will be decided by
the Working Group by consensus, the Legislative Committee requests that the
UMA Working Group prioritizes the creation of such information at our
meeting on the 26th, given the realities of the Joint Committee's schedule.

In an effort to meet the goal of ensuring that the UMA Working Group has the
information necessary to discuss this issue on the 26th, the Legislative
Committee requested information from the Confidentiality/Privilege, Public
Sector, Training/Definition Committees. Attached please find reports from
the Public Sector and Training/Definition Committees. The Confidentiality
Committee will provide their report to the Working Group at the meeting on
April 26th.

Thank you for taking the time to review our proposal and the attached
information. Our hope is to use our upcoming meeting to create an effective
legislative strategy and to better understand the issues that the Working
Group will need to address over the next few months.

Should you have questions, please contact me or any member of the
Legislative Committee listed at www.massuma.com.

On behalf of the Legislative Committee,

Chuck Doran.

Attendees (by conference call): Vicky Bennet, Kurt Dettman, Robin DiGiammarino, Chuck Doran, and Gail Packer

Update on Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development: The hearing is as yet unscheduled.

Discussion: Members are in agreement on the following as a recommended strategy and timeline for moving ahead in preparation for the first hearing of the UMA by the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development:

Strategy: Members agree that, given the way the legislative process works, it is in the interests of the ADR community for the Working Group to provide the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development (JCLWD) with a document reflecting the WG’s efforts thus far, during the week prior to a scheduled first hearing.

We recommend that, at the first hearing, WG representatives request that the JCLWD consider the submitted document instead of HB 1814, which was filed in error, and further request that the JCLWD defer action on the UMA until September, 2007, allowing time for the WG to submit a second, more complete, revised draft of the UMA for the Joint Committee’s consideration.

We recommend that the document submitted by the WG before the first hearing should consist of the correct text of the UMA with suggested revisions thus far agreed upon by subcommittees as well as annotation to identify issues still under discussion by subcommittees.

We further agree that it is in the interests of the ADR community to promote and confirm the expeditious involvement of currently unrepresented stakeholders and stakeholder groups in the WG’s deliberations, given the WG’s hope that the community will reach consensus on supporting a revised UMA during the 2007 legislative session.

With these goals in mind, we recommend that the Process Committee request that all subcommittees report out with their section of the UMA showing the relevant original language, any draft revisions they have reached consensus on, and identified issues still under discussion.

We further recommend that the Process Committee reach out promptly to unrepresented stakeholders to request and confirm their participation at the April 26 WG meeting.

The Legislative Committee agrees to take responsibility for developing a standardized form to be used by the Process Committee in their request for status reports from the subcommittees.

The LC further agrees to take responsibility for developing a version of the UMA that synthesizes reported revisions and issues, and to post said version on www.massuma.org for review by WG members and other stakeholders contacted by the Process Committee, in advance of the April 26 WG meeting, for discussion at that meeting.

NOTE: By way of providing a rationale for our recommendations to the Process Committee: We understand from Kurt that so far the MBA and the BBA have taken a “wait and watch” approach to the Working Group process. We believe that it is in our interests to draw them, and other stakeholders, into the conversation early, so that any discussion is played out before it is too late to build consensus for support of the UMA in this legislative period. We believe that giving them specific language to respond to at this point will have the desired effect of engaging them.

Our plan for developing an extended legislative strategy is to work in conjunction with the Process Committee so that our recommended strategy will be a good fit for the Process Committee’s overall strategy.

· Kurt to liaise with Process Committee to request their prompt review of the present meeting notes and recommendations.

· 4/9/07: Due date for Kurt to email Legislative Committee with Process Committee’s response to recommendations. Due date for Robin to create a standardized template for Process Committee to send to subcommittees requesting information.

· 4/10/07: Legislative Committee approves Robin’s draft form and emails to Process Committee. Due date for Process Committee, (if in agreement with the present recommendations,) to send email with Robin’s form requesting that subcommittees submit completed forms to Vicky at vjbennet@gmail.com by 4/20/07, and advising of planned discussion at April WG meeting.

· TBD: Due date for Process Committee to reach out to list of key stakeholders requesting confirmation of participation in WG process and advising them of planned submission of revised UMA at first hearing and of upcoming discussion opportunity at April WG meeting.

· 4/20/07: Due date for subcommittee reports to be sent to Vicky at vjbennet@gmail.com.

· 4/23/07: Due date for Legislative Committee to post synthesized draft UMA, with all subcommittee revisions and annotations, on www.massuma.org, and for Process Committee to notify all WG members and other stakeholders of posting.

· 4/26/07: Working Group meeting, agenda to include discussion of synthesized draft UMA, with goal of reaching consensus on document to be submitted as a first draft to the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development in the week before the first scheduled hearing.

Next meeting of Legislative Committee: April 30, 2007 at 1:30 pm, (conference call) Agenda and call-in information to be sent by Chuck in mid-March.