2015
- RSI publishes three statistical reports for all Illinois Attorney General-funded foreclosure mediation programs.*
- The first mediation is conducted for a Boone County case in RSI’s 17th Judicial Circuit foreclosure mediation program in February.*
- RSI publishes Six Programs, Six Models: An Evaluation of the Foreclosure Mediation Programs Funded by the Office of the Illinois Attorney General. Conducted by RSI Director of Research Jennifer Shack, this formative evaluation is the most comprehensive study of court ADR ever performed in Illinois.*
- RSI publishes an evaluation of our foreclosure mediation program in the 16th Judicial Circuit of Illinois, serving Kane County, as part of the statewide evaluation, Six Programs, Six Models.*
- RSI publishes an evaluation of our foreclosure mediation program in the 17th Judicial Circuit of Illinois, serving Winnebago and Boone counties, as part of the statewide evaluation, Six Programs, Six Models.*
- RSI publishes an evaluation of our foreclosure mediation program in the 19th Judicial Circuit of Illinois, serving Lake County, as part of the statewide evaluation, Six Programs, Six Models.*
- Terry Moritz is elected RSI Board President at the August 2015 Board of Directors Meeting. His predecessor, Honorable Morton Denlow (ret.), continues to serve on the Board.
2016
- The Illinois Attorney General extends funding two years for RSI to continue administering and evaluating foreclosure mediation programs through May 2018.
- Executive Director Susan Yates is named to the National Law Journal’s inaugural class of ADR Champions.
- RSI begins developing the Kane County Child Protection Mediation Program** in Illinois' 16th Judicial Circuit Court, securing grant funding for a pilot phase, working with the 16th Circuit to develop local court rules and recruiting a roster of dedicated volunteer mediators.
- Model Surveys Toolkit is completed in conjunction with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution. The toolkit provides courts with model post-mediation surveys as well as instructions about how to modify them to fit their programs and to interpret survey responses.
- "Promoting Access to Justice: Applying Lessons Learned from Foreclosure Mediation," co-written by RSI staff member Jennifer Shack and former RSI staff member Hannah Kaufman, is published in Dispute Resolution Magazine.
- RSI begins evaluation of the Washington, D.C. Court's child protection mediation program.
2017
- RSI trains ten volunteer mediators for RSI’s Kane County Child Protection Mediation Program.**
- RSI's Kane County Child Protection Mediation Program** begins mediating cases.
- RSI develops evaluation system for the Minnesota Office for Collaboration and Dispute Resolution.
- RSI launches our completely renovated website, AboutRSI.org, combining our former resource center and organizational sites. The new site is truly a one stop shop for all things RSI- and court ADR-related.
- The Illinois Attorney General extends funding for RSI to continue administering foreclosure mediation programs through August 2018.
- RSI is awarded a contract to evaluate the Supreme Court of Ohio Dispute Resolution Section’s The Right Track Project, a pilot program to address truancy problems.
- Executive Director Susan Yates trains neutrals and court administrators in Georgia and New Hampshire court ADR programs.
2018
- RSI launches Mediation Efficacy Studies, the most comprehensive collection of resources on the subject of court mediation effectiveness.
- RSI publishes Model Tools for Mediator Peer Review, a resource designed to give court ADR programs a way to assess and improve mediator skills.
- Mayor Thomas McNamara of Rockford, Illinois declares July 11, 2018, Resolution Systems Institute Day in honor of RSI’s work on foreclosure mediation.
- RSI completes evaluation of the District of Columbia Child Protection Mediation Program, Improving an Effective Program: A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia Child Protection Mediation Program.**
- RSI collaborates with National Association for Community Mediation to develop a special topic on community mediation as it relates to court ADR and publishes it on RSI’s Resource Center on AboutRSI.org.
- RSI implements a Peer Review process into our Child Protection Mediation Program to ensure mediators continue to develop their skills and that disputants receive high-quality mediation services.
- RSI successfully completes our five-year grant from Illinois Attorney General under which we developed and administered foreclosure mediation programs in Lake, Kane, Winnebago and Boone counties; trained mediators for all Attorney General-funded foreclosure mediation programs throughout the state; developed an online case management and monitoring system for those programs; and conducted two statewide evaluations of the programs.*
- RSI’s foreclosure mediation programs serve more than 3,300 homeowners and save more than 750 homes.
- All three of RSI’s foreclosure mediation programs are continued by their courts at the conclusion of Attorney General funding.*
- RSI contracts with the courts in the 16th Judicial Circuit (Kane County, Illinois) and the 19th Judicial Circuit (Lake County, Illinois) to continue to provide mediation services.
- The 17th Judicial Circuit (Winnebago and Boone counties, Illinois) brings the program in-house to administer.
- RSI names Eric Slepak-Cherney, formerly RSI Director of ADR Programs, Associate Director.
- RSI publishes Saving Homes, Building Understanding: An Evaluation of the Eight Foreclosure Mediation Programs Funded by the Illinois Attorney General. Conducted by RSI Director of Research Jennifer Shack, this summative evaluation is the most comprehensive study of court ADR ever performed in Illinois.*
- Director of Research Jennifer Shack is appointed to the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution’s Research Advisory Committee.
2019
- RSI releases individual circuit updates for our summative evaluation of Illinois’s Foreclosure Mediation programs, Savings Homes, Building Understanding. The full evaluation was released at the end of 2018.**
- Director of Research Jennifer Shack celebrates 20 years at RSI.
- RSI completes an evaluation of a multi-site civil stalking mediation pilot in Ohio.
- RSI develops a Special Topic on Online Dispute Resolution and publishes it on RSI’s Resource Center on AboutRSI.org.
- RSI conducts a survey of judges for the State Bar of Wisconsin on the landscape of court-referred mediation throughout the state and the courts’ mediation needs.
- RSI launches a remodeled and updated Court ADR Across the US, RSI’s information about court ADR in every state across the country. The updates include state compilation pages that provide an overview of statutes and relevant statewide court ADR rules and policies.
- RSI receives the Irwin Cantor award from the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.
- RSI explores whether an online tool might improve pre-mediation screening for intimate partner violence. Using research, surveys and a gathering of experts, we produced a report, Considering an Online Pre-Mediation Tool to Screen for Intimate Partner Violence: Findings & Blueprint.
- RSI publishes four new chapters to our Guide to Program Success that explore how to write and revise court rules (includes a Guide to Exemplary Rules that highlights model court rules from across the country), how to design a system to track court programs, how to create program forms, and how to launch a program.
- RSI adds eight studies to our Mediation Efficacy Studies.
- Executive Director Susan M. Yates presents a series of three seminars on “Building Your Court's Civil ADR Systems” at New Mexico’s statewide ADR conference in Santa Fe.
- RSI begins conducting an evaluation of ODR programs in certain small claims courts in Hawaii and Texas in partnership with the University of California, Davis. This evaluation examines the impact of ODR on the court and litigants.
* Denotes activities supported by a grant from the Office of the Illinois Attorney General to develop and provide foreclosure mediation in Illinois.
** Most recently, for the 2020 fiscal year, RSI has been awarded $44,268 from the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts’ State Court Improvement Program. Overall, $44,268 of the Kane County Child Protection Mediation Program’s $45,500 budget (or 97%) is federally funded, with the remaining $1,232 (3%) coming from nongovernmental funding.