Faculty Advisor Donna Shestowsky Interviewed by KUCI

Posted By Samantha Mandell, Jul 11, 2014

On June 26, UC Davis School of Law professor and KHNT faculty advisor Donna Shestowsky was interviewed by UC Irvine radio station KUCI regarding her ongoing study of how litigants decide how to choose and resolve disputes.

The study involves two parts: first an examination of how civil litigants assess procedures at the start of their cases, and second how they assess those procedures after their cases are over. The overarching question is if and how those views change over time.

In conducting the study, Shestowsky collected data from over 400 litigants in 19 states. She found these litigants through three court systems (the 3rd Judicial Court of Salt Lake City, Utah, the Superior Court of Solano County, California, and the 4th Judicial District in Multnomah County, Oregon). From there, she randomly selected a subset of litigants in cases that range from contract disputes, employment issues, civil rights, property, personal injury, and other civil disputes.

The first part of the study was conducted by a written survey that asked litigants to evaluate procedures in light of how attractive those options would be for their individual case. The options were jury trial, judge trial, non-binding arbitration, binding arbitration, and different types of negotiation. There, Shestowsky found a three-way tie for most attractive between mediation, judge trial, and negotiation. She also found that the greatest factor in a litigant deciding on what procedure should be chosen was the opinion of that litigant’s attorney.

The second part of the study, which was conducted through a phone call survey, should be concluded this summer. Over the course of more than an hour and a half per person, this survey asked litigants what procedures they ended up using, how many procedures, the effects of dispute resolution on the relationship with the other party, and overall satisfaction with the process. The results of this part of the survey are still forthcoming.

The study is funded by the National Science Foundation, the American Bar Association, and UC Davis.