Transcript 0:00 Welcome back to The Deep Dive, the show built for you, the perpetually curious person who needs the shortcut to expertise. 0:07 We take a complex stack of sources, articles, legislative analysis, judicial opinions, and we, uh, we really pull out the core of it. Exactly. 0:15 So you don't just know what happened, but why it fundamentally changes the game. And today, we are strapping on our legal waders and, uh, plunging deep into the mechanics of California civil procedure. 0:28 Specifically, how courts manage the vast majority of non-personal injury claims. That's right. We're tackling California Assembly Bill fifteen twenty-three, and this is-- it's more than just a little procedural tweak. 0:39 It's not just moving a comma around. No, not at all. It's a significant structural piece of legislation that completely resets how courts use mandatory mediation. Okay. 0:49 So for anyone involved in the civil justice system, you know, especially those handling mid-value disputes, think employment, consumer cases, smaller commercial stuff, this bill introduces a really stringent but, uh, potentially very efficient new roadmap. 1:02 Okay, let's unpack this then. Our mission today is to really analyze AB fifteen twenty-three from a systems perspective. The sources we've curated describe it as a kind of dual-action bill. That's a good way to put it. 1:15 It expands the, uh, eligibility for court-ordered mediation- Mm-hmm. -so more disputes get pulled into the system. Right. 1:22 But at the same time, it also significantly tightens the conditions under which a judge can actually make that order. 1:28 And that tension, that push and pull between expansion and restriction, that is precisely where the innovation is. It sounds like a fascinating attempt to balance access with, I guess, mandatory readiness. It is. 1:41 And this bill, you know, it reflects and reinforces a profound ongoing judicial trend, not just in California, but really across the nation. Which is what? 1:49 Alternative dispute resolution, ADR, is moving decisively away from being this, like, convenient late-stage side option. Right, something you do at the last minute. Exactly. 1:59 Instead, it's being cemented as a central, mainstream, and foundational part of how civil justice is administered, at least for specific case types and values. This is formalized criteria-based integration. 2:11 That makes the stakes really high. So for you, the listener, our structure for this deep dive is clear. First, we need to cover the most concrete change, the core financial shift. Yeah. 2:22 That's what determines who gets into this mandatory process. 2:26 Then second, we'll dive into the vital new safeguards, the five strict criteria a judge has to meet to order mediation, which, you know, are all about eliminating wasted effort. 2:36 And third, we'll look at the standardized kind of non-negotiable rules for conduct once mediation is ordered, including that critical authoritative requirement. And finally, we'll connect it all to the bigger picture. 2:46 We'll look at the stakeholder debates around the caps, the rigidity of the deadlines, and, uh, and define the clear message this sends to all legal practitioners about strategic preparation. Okay, let's unpack this. 2:58 Let's start with the money. Right. 2:59 The most immediate concrete change AB fifteen twenty-three delivers is a pretty straightforward numerical adjustment that will, you know, instantly impact thousands of cases across California when it takes effect. 3:11 What are the specific numbers we're talking about here? So the change relates directly to the amount and controversy ceiling for court-ordered mediation. Okay. 3:20 And that cap is jumping from the long-standing benchmark of fifty thousand dollars- Oh. -up to seventy-five thousand. So twenty-five-thousand-dollar jump. Exactly. 3:29 And that might sound incremental, but in procedural terms it dramatically broadens the scope of a judge's reach. You mentioned the previous cap was static for decades. I think that context is really important. 3:40 It's critical. When was that fifty-thousand-dollar cap originally set? And what does today's economic reality tell us about why that number just wasn't working anymore? 3:49 Well, the initial cap was designed in an era where, you know, fifty thousand dollars was a much more significant economic stake than it is today. Of course. 3:57 The legislative analyses that came with AB fifteen twenty-three highlighted that this figure had been basically unchanged since the late nineteen-nineties, if not earlier. Wow. 4:05 So if you just apply a standard inflation calculator, even looking at the last twenty-five years, a fifty-thousand-dollar dispute from back then has the purchasing power of roughly eighty or even ninety thousand dollars today. 4:17 So the fifty-thousand-dollar cap was-- I mean, it was artificially limiting the system- Completely. -by failing to account for decades of inflation. Cases that were conceptually mid-value- Right. 4:28 -and really ideal for this kind of resolution had just crept past the old threshold. They did, and that forced them into the expensive full-blown litigation track. Which c-clogs up the courts. Exactly. 4:39 The old cap limited the useful reach of court-ordered mediation to cases that were economically becoming smaller and smaller, leaving that really critical mid-value tier to clog the trial dockets. 4:53 And I imagine litigation costs themselves have inflated faster than just about anything else. Oh, much faster. 4:59 When you consider expert witness fees, discovery costs, attorney hourly rates, they've all inflated far faster than, say, consumer goods. So that fifty-thousand-dollar cap became an impediment to proportionality. 5:12 What do you mean by proportionality? Well, if a case is worth sixty-five thousand dollars and it's gonna cost you forty thousand dollars to take it through trial, the system has failed the litigant. 5:21 It's just not proportional. Raising the ceiling to seventy-five thousand seems like a direct attempt to restore that proportionality then. It is. 5:29 To steer those cases where the cost of trial is just way out of whack with the stakes back into a cheaper mandatory process. It is absolutely a move toward restoring proportionality and operational efficiency. 5:41 By raising the ceiling, the courts can now steer a category of disputes that we can genuinely call mid-value into this managed process. The legislative intent was specifically about mitigating that financial burden. 5:54 And when we talk about these mid-value disputes, what areas of law are we gonna see the biggest impact from this expansion? Is it mostly personal injury or something else? 6:03 No, it's really focused on non-PI claims that suffer from high administrative costs. Our sources specifically cite employment cases. Like a wrongful termination.Exactly. 6:12 Wrongful termination or wage disputes that might not be huge federal cases, but are complex enough for substantial state-level discovery. 6:22 They also include consumer protection cases and, uh, smaller commercial disputes, you know, breach of contract, partnership dissolutions, where the damages are clear, but time and cost are the real enemies. 6:33 Okay, so these are the cases where the stakes are high enough that people are willing to fight hard- Right... but where the efficiency gains from avoiding a full-blown trial are just massive. That's it. 6:44 And if you can push these cases into a structured mediation, the anticipated benefits for the whole system are pretty clear. What are they? Well, the legislative analyses tout a threefold benefit. 6:54 First, a measurable reduction in court backlog for complex civil matters. That's the big one. Second, significantly lower overall legal expenses for the litigants themselves, which enhances access to justice. 7:06 And third, a faster time to resolution, which minimizes all that economic uncertainty. So the state is making a calculated bet here. A very calculated bet. 7:15 The fixed predictable cost of a successful mandatory mediation vastly outweighs the variable and often very high cost of managing these cases all the way through discovery and trial. It's a system-level optimization. 7:29 Mm-hmm. Okay, let's get into the logistical details because this change isn't happening tomorrow. What's the effective date for the new seventy-five-thousand-dollar cap? 7:38 That's a critical detail for anyone planning ahead. The bill is law, but the new cap of seventy-five thousand dollars is effective on January first, twenty twenty-seven. Twenty twenty-seven, that's a pretty long runway. 7:49 It is, over two years from now, and that's essential. 7:52 It gives the judicial council time to update all the court rules, issue new forms, and most importantly, it gives lawyers and law firms time to adjust their strategic case valuation models. Right. 8:02 You have to recalibrate everything. Now let's talk about that valuation itself. 8:06 If a court decides early on, maybe before full discovery, that a case falls under that seventy-five-thousand-dollar threshold, does that initial estimate legally bind the parties later on? 8:15 Absolutely not, and this is a really important fairness safeguard. 8:18 AB-1523 explicitly clarifies that the amount in controversy determination made only for the purpose of mediation eligibility is without prejudice to later findings at trial. 8:29 Can you break down what without prejudice really means in this context- Mm-hmm... for the practitioner? Certainly. 8:35 It means that the court's administrative estimate, the number it uses just to route the case into the mediation track, has no evidentiary value. It can't be used against you later. Could you give an example? Sure. 8:47 Imagine a plaintiff whose initial demand is, say, seventy-two thousand dollars. 8:52 That triggers the mandatory mediation, but later during discovery, they find evidence of, I don't know, severe emotional distress or a much bigger pattern of corporate wrongdoing, and now their case is potentially worth one hundred and fifty thousand. 9:05 Okay. That initial seventy-two-thousand-dollar estimate can't be used by the defendant at trial to argue, "But you, the plaintiff, admitted your case was only worth this much." I see. 9:16 So it protects the plaintiff from being penalized for the system's need to quickly classify the case. That's it. 9:21 Because without that safeguard, you can imagine a plaintiff might just artificially inflate their initial demands to avoid the mandatory track and keep their leverage. Exactly. 9:30 It prevents the mediation-triggering mechanism from becoming a tactical constraint or an evidentiary weapon down the road. It's a clean separation between administrative procedure and substantive evidence. 9:41 A very robust distinction. Oh, yeah. So by twenty twenty-seven, we've got a clear expansion of eligible cases. Right. 9:47 Specifically these mid-value claims, but eligibility is only the first hurdle, and this brings us to the second major component of AB-1523, these five strict readiness criteria that a judge has to meet before they can actually issue the order. 10:02 The system is saying more cases are coming, but only when they are truly ready. And here's where it gets, uh, really interesting for me. We're shifting from financial gatekeeping to procedural gatekeeping. 10:12 The readiness criteria. Right. And the goal here is just profoundly practical, to avoid those early low-information mediations that rarely succeed. Every attorney listening knows that feeling. Oh, yeah. 10:25 The frustration of sitting in a mandatory session where one side hasn't finished their document production and the other side hasn't really analyzed their risk, it's a waste of time and money. 10:35 And that frustration is the exact policy driver behind this section of the bill. These five criteria are all designed to ensure ripeness. Ripeness. Yeah. 10:45 They essentially force the parties to act like the case is heading to trial. You know, define the issues, gather the facts, analyze the evidence before they're forced to negotiate. 10:55 It's designed to avoid those wasted mediations. So a judge can't just order it even if the value is under seventy-five thousand. Not unless all five conditions are met. Okay, let's break these down. 11:06 Let's start with the first one, which speaks directly to how invested the court is in the case. Right. The first requirement is that the civil action must have been set for trial. Okay, set for trial. 11:16 Why is linking the mandatory mediation order to the trial setting date so crucial for forcing a meaningful resolution? It creates leverage and urgency. 11:27 By the time a court sets a trial date, the case is considered mature. The initial motions are done, the pleading stage is over. 11:34 Both sides have likely invested serious time and, more importantly, sunk significant legal costs. And that trial date on the calendar is a huge non-negotiable deadline. It is. It forces a serious risk assessment. 11:47 If you order mediation right after a complaint is filed, the parties just see it as a procedural box to check. They'll kick the can down the road. But ordering it after trial is set, that demands seriousness. 11:58 It absolutely does. It puts the weight of the litigation calendar behind the negotiation. Okay, so that's condition one. What's the second? 12:04 The second condition is a fascinating nod to the voluntary nature of settlement, even within a mandatory system. The requirement is that at least one party must have notified the court of an interest in mediation. 12:16 So even if the value is right and the trial date is set, the court still needsA minimal signal of, I guess, amenability from at least one side. Precisely. It's a crucial philosophical check. 12:28 You know, successful mediation, even when it's mandatory, still requires a basic level of willingness to engage. You can't force a settlement on people who absolutely refuse to even talk. You can't. 12:39 And if zero parties have expressed any interest, if both sides are convinced it's a scorched earth fight, then forcing them into a session is often just economically pointless. This filters those cases out. 12:51 It prevents the court from wasting subsidized judicial resources on the cases that were always going to a jury anyway. Exactly. Targeted efficiency. Okay. Condition three. 13:00 This one seems like maybe the most demanding one. It is, and it goes to the heart of what so often derails settlement: missing facts. The requirement. 13:09 The requirement is that all ongoing discovery disputes must have been resolved. All of them. All of them. 13:15 This safeguard directly addresses the number one cause of failed mediation, decisions based on incomplete or contested information. 13:24 Because when parties don't have a shared set of facts, they can't accurately assess risk. Right. The plaintiff overvalues their case because they think there's a smoking gun in the documents they haven't seen yet. 13:36 And the defendant undervalues it because they assume the plaintiff's damage claims are just hot air until they see the formal discovery responses. Precisely. 13:44 And if those information gaps still exist, refusing a settlement offer is just sound tactical practice. You don't know your worst case scenario. 13:52 So this rule eliminates the ability to strategically refuse to settle just based on procedural ambiguity. It does. 14:00 The court is saying, "Before you sit down, you must have resolved all conflicts over what evidence is available." 14:06 So if there's an active motion to compel production of financial documents- That has to be settled first, either by a judge's ruling or by party agreement. 14:14 The fight has to be over before the case is deemed ripe for negotiation. This dramatically shifts the litigator's incentive, doesn't it? Completely. 14:22 Procedural delay over discovery is no longer a viable strategy if you want to get into this mandatory mediation process. That's the powerful implication. It demands early procedural housekeeping. 14:32 You're penalized with delayed entry into the process if you continue to fight over information. It forces genuine informed settlement discussions. 14:41 So the system is betting that a well-prepared mediation, even if it takes more effort up front, is far more valuable than a quick, ill-informed one that fails. That's the bet. Okay, condition four, what is it? 14:54 Condition four introduces an element of party autonomy, which is critical for buy-in. The requirement is that the parties must have been informed of their option to stipulate to a mutually agreeable mediator. 15:05 So they don't just have one imposed by the court. Exactly. This addresses the human element. 15:09 If I'm forced into a room to negotiate, but I get a say in picking the person guiding the negotiation, my commitment to the process goes way up. It's about perceived fairness. It's about fairness and expertise. 15:21 Mediation success often hinges on the credibility and the subject matter expertise of the neutral. So AB 1523 mandates that judges inform the parties of this power. 15:31 The process is mandatory, but the choice of facilitator is collaborative. Which increases the chances of success. And finally, condition five. Condition five just brings us full circle back to the financial foundation. 15:42 The requirement is that the amount in controversy still must not exceed seventy-five thousand dollars. The final check. It's the foundational filter. 15:50 You have to meet the financial threshold and all four of the readiness criteria to be subject to the court's mandatory order. So to sum up the readiness criteria: mature case. Trial set. Basic settlement interest. 16:03 Party notification. Complete information. Discovery resolved. Informed choice. Stipulation option. And correct value. Seventy-five thousand max. 16:12 That is an impressively high, and you're right, necessary bar for mandatory intervention. So we've established who is eligible and when they're ready. Now let's shift focus to how the mediation has to be conducted. 16:27 Right. Because once a judge navigates those five hurdles and issues the order, AB 1523 introduces new rules to standardize and tighten up the actual conduct of the session. 16:37 The focus is now on enforcing efficiency and accountability. Absolutely. The bill ensures that once a case is deemed ripe, the, the process isn't derailed by, you know, administrative delay or lack of authority. 16:49 The system demands that the parties move quickly and show up with the ability to resolve the case right then and there. Okay, so the first step after the order is selecting the mediator. 16:59 What does AB 1523 say about how quickly that has to happen, and what's the default if the parties just can't agree? 17:07 The requirement is that selection must happen promptly following existing standards designed to prevent selection disagreements from becoming a delay tactic. And the safety net. 17:16 The safety net is crucial for efficiency and cost. If the parties can't agree on a mediator within a short statutorily defined window, usually about fifteen or twenty days, the court appoints one. 17:28 Okay, court intervention is good, but here's a potential issue. The court appoints a mediator at no cost. Does that risk compromising the quality of the process? That is a critical tension. 17:38 It's a point of ongoing debate among litigators. I can imagine. On one hand, the no-cost provision is vital for access to justice. 17:46 For a seventy-five thousand dollar dispute, paying five or ten thousand dollars for a private mediator is a huge chunk of the potential recovery. So removing that cost barrier makes it viable. It does. 17:56 But on the other hand, seasoned attorneys often prefer to pay top dollar for a highly specialized mediator who they know is exceptional in a niche field because they believe that investment dramatically increases the chance of success. 18:08 And a court-appointed mediator from a panel might not have that niche expertise. They may not. So the goal here is to prioritize access and speed over hyper-specialization. 18:18 It's a pragmatic compromise to keep things moving. Okay, so once the mediator is selected, we move to the session itself, and the bill addresses one of the biggest historical failures of mediation. 18:29 The lack of settlement authority in the room. Exactly. AB 1523 explicitly mandates that all parties, counsel, and specified representatives must comply with Rule 3.894 attendance requirements. 18:41 And this is where the rubber meets the road.What's the history behind rule three point eight nine four, and what are the consequences if the right person doesn't show up with real authority? 18:52 Rule three point eight nine four is the judicial council's tool for enforcing mandatory attendance in ADR. It requires that all participants, including persons with full authority to settle the case, must attend. 19:04 And it addresses that historical problem of the low-balling representative. 19:09 The person who's there but can only offer a tiny fraction of the claim and has to keep calling a higher-up, which just wastes time and torpedoes confidence in the process. 19:19 It prevents an endless frustration of negotiating with people who just have to say, "I have to call my supervisor." Precisely. 19:25 Under this rule, the representative has to have the authority to settle the case for the full amount of the plaintiff's last demand or whatever the representative reasonably thinks the case might settle for. 19:34 And if they show up without that authority? The court can impose sanctions. That could mean paying the other side's attorney fees and costs for the failed mediation- Ah. 19:43 -or even judicial sanctions against the party itself. The rule has teeth. And does this apply differently for, say, a corporation versus an insurance company? It does. 19:53 In a corporate case, commercial, or employment, the representative often has to be a specific officer or senior manager with financial sign-off power. 20:01 In an insurance defense case, the adjuster has to attend, and they must be the one with the highest current settlement authority for that case. 20:09 This provision ensures that when settlement is possible, the mechanism to finalize it is right there in the room. The standardization of authority is critical. It gives the process legitimacy. It does. 20:19 Okay, finally, AB one twenty-three three installs a hard stop to prevent mediation from becoming just another delaying tactic. Right. There's a conclusion deadline. 20:29 The requirement is that the mediation must conclude either with a signed agreement or a formal statement of non-agreement no later than one hundred and twenty days before trial. One hundred and twenty days. 20:38 That's four full months. Why such a rigid front-loaded deadline? The rigidity is intentional, and the source material stresses that this deadline may not, under any circumstances, delay the trial date. 20:49 So it's not a tool to kick the can down the road. No. Mediation is supposed to resolve the case efficiently. If it fails, the court has to be sure there's still ample time for final trial prep. 20:59 You know, last-minute motions, witness lists, exhibits, all that final administrative stuff. 21:04 So if the mediation fails at one hundred and twenty days out, the court knows it can just proceed with trial prep without disruption. Precisely. 21:12 If mediation were allowed to happen, say, thirty days before trial, and it failed, the court would face immediate pressure to grant a continuance, which throws the whole docket into chaos. 21:21 So this rule ensures mediation serves its function as a gatekeeper to trial, not an obstacle to it. Exactly. It signals that AB fifteen twenty-three is not interested in facilitating tactical delays. 21:32 Hashtag, hashtag five V, broader context, stakeholder debate, and the big picture. So if we connect this to the bigger picture, AB fifteen twenty-three is a highly intentional move. 21:41 It places California firmly in a national trend, the comprehensive integration of structured ADR tools into standard civil procedure. It's not just a local adjustment. Not at all. It's a procedural philosophy shift. 21:53 It's the institutionalization of problem-solving. It's moving the whole judicial framework from just managing conflict to actively engineering efficient pathways for resolution based on a case's value and its maturity. 22:07 That's a great way to put it. Policy analysts frame this as a move from, you know, ad hoc optional ADR to structured criteria-based integration. The philosophy is expanding eligibility for efficiency. 22:19 But only enforcing it when the process has the highest probability of actually succeeding. It's strategic efficiency driven by procedural mandates. 22:27 But whenever the state imposes mandates like this, there's always pushback, usually about cost or flexibility. Of course. 22:34 What's the feedback been from the key stakeholders, the attorneys and the court administrators who have to make this work? There are two main areas of friction. 22:41 Both are related to whether the bill went far enough or, uh, m-maybe went too far in its rigidity. Okay. First, the debate is on the financial ceiling. 22:51 Several stakeholder groups, including associations representing court administrators, argued that the seventy-five thousand dollar cap is still too conservative. Really? 22:59 Even after a twenty-five thousand dollar increase, it's still too conservative. Why? The argument is rooted in the current reality of litigation costs. 23:08 To seriously try a complex commercial or employment case, even one valued at, say, eighty or one hundred thousand, 23:15 the costs for expert testimony, depositions, e-discovery, they can easily climb into the fifty to seventy thousand dollar range. So the proportionality problem is still there for those cases just above the cap. 23:27 It's still acute. Critics argue that to truly maximize efficiency, the cap should have been pushed to at least one hundred thousand, maybe higher, to reflect the true cost of prosecuting a case today. 23:38 They feel the legislature missed an opportunity. So the argument is that seventy-five thousand is still arbitrary. The true dividing line might be closer to six figures now. That's the core of that critique. 23:49 The second area of debate focuses on the procedural rigidity we talked about. Specifically, the requirement to have all discovery disputes resolved and that one hundred and twenty-day deadline. Exactly. 23:59 Which raises that important question, does seeking absolute procedural precision risk sacrificing necessary flexibility? Does it? It absolutely can. Critics point out that litigation is dynamic. 24:12 Sometimes a minor discovery dispute, a disagreement over the format of some metadata, for instance, might technically be ongoing, but it's totally peripheral to the core issues of the case. Right. 24:23 If a judge is strictly barred from ordering mediation until every single technical motion is resolved- It allows a highly adversarial party to strategically exploit that. Exactly. 24:34 They can just create minor sustained discovery disputes to delay entry into mediation, which they might want to avoid, and push the case closer to trial. It turns a readiness safeguard into a procedural weapon. It can. 24:46 So the legislature prioritized thoroughness over expediency, betting that the cost of a delayed but prepared mediation is less than the cost of a failed premature one.But the rigidity creates implementation challenges. 24:58 And what are some of those other implementation challenges for judges and court staff come twenty twenty-seven? The primary challenge is just uniformity of practice and judicial training. 25:07 Judges now have five distinct mandatory criteria to check that requires new forms, new training to make sure every judge in every county interprets resolved discovery disputes consistently. 25:19 And the system needs to ramp up its capacity to manage a bigger panel of court-appointed mediators. And handle all the rapid scheduling demands of that hundred and twenty-day cutoff. It's a big lift. 25:30 Okay, so regardless of the debate, what's the clear non-negotiable message for legal practitioners by twenty twenty-seven? 25:37 The message is that for sub seventy-five thousand dollar cases, mediation is now a fixed, mandatory, and rule-bound stage of litigation. It can't be an afterthought. 25:46 So it demands a pretty significant strategic adjustment. What do lawyers need to start integrating into their case management models, like right now? First, proactive discovery management is paramount. 25:56 You have to resolve those procedural skirmishes early, knowing that discovery resolution is the key that unlocks this mandatory settlement phase. Delaying discovery resolution means delaying mediation. 26:06 And that consumes precious time on the litigation clock. Second, strategic planning around the trial setting date is critical. The moment that date is set, the hundred and twenty-day clock starts ticking. And third... 26:17 Client preparation. 26:19 Attorneys have to make sure their clients or the corporate reps, the people with true Rule three point eight nine four authority, are educated, prepared, and ready to make serious informed decisions well in advance of that hard deadline. 26:33 It essentially mandates that lawyers must litigate the case as if successful mediation is the expected and required outcome- Yes... rather than just preparing for trial. Absolutely. 26:43 It transforms mediation from a suggested detour into a high-stakes mandatory checkpoint. It's gonna fundamentally change how these disputes are managed. Hashtag tag tag outro. 26:52 This has been a necessary and, um, a really deep analytical look into a procedural reform with massive practical implications. To synthesize, AB Fifteen Twenty-Three is really defined by its dual nature. Right. 27:04 Expanded reach, pulling more mid-value cases in by raising the cap to seventy-five thousand dollars. 27:08 Coupled with those strict readiness criteria, case maturity, resolved discovery, required authority, and that fixed a hundred and twenty-day cutoff before trial. 27:19 It's a robust framework intended to address every systemic flaw that plagued the old process. It is. But as often happens with major procedural shifts, there's still some legislative cleanup required. Oh. 27:30 Commentators are particularly focused on the need to harmonize AB Fifteen Twenty-Three with related statutes, specifically the judicial arbitration provisions. 27:39 Wait, why does this new mediation law conflict with judicial arbitration? What needs to be fixed? 27:44 So judicial arbitration, or JA, is another form of mandatory non-binding resolution that California courts use mostly for smaller civil cases. And the threshold for that is still fifty thousand. Currently, yes. 27:56 The JA threshold is still set at fifty thousand. 27:58 So with AB Fifteen Twenty-Three, the legislature has created this weird conflict where cases valued between fifty thousand and one dollars and seventy-five thousand dollars are now subject to mandatory mediation. 28:08 But maybe not mandatory judicial arbitration. It creates a weird gap in the law. Exactly. 28:13 If the goal is total efficiency for these mid-value cases, the logical next step is to clean up the code and raise the JA limit to seventy-five thousand as well to ensure consistency across all mandatory resolution tools. 28:26 That work is expected to happen soon. That makes perfect sense. The system needs internal alignment. But for you, the listener, we want to leave you with one final provocative thought. 28:36 If this highly structured mandatory mediation model, which compels preparedness, requires authority, and respects the trial calendar, if it proves to be the successful answer to court backlog for these mid-value cases, what happens next? 28:51 What happens when the courts hungry for efficiency look to the next logical step? Will judges and legislators look to raise the cap again soon? And not just by a little. 28:59 Will they push the threshold well into six figures, say a hundred and twenty-five thousand or even a hundred and fifty thousand, and fundamentally shift the entire civil litigation landscape? 29:09 Reshaping everything but the largest personal injury and commercial claims. Right. 29:14 If mandatory criteria-driven settlement becomes the established normal for seventy-five thousand dollar cases, how long until it becomes the norm for nearly everything else? 29:24 And how quickly could these rules be adapted nationally as other states grapple with the exact same backlog and cost issues? 29:31 A procedural reform that starts with a simple twenty-five thousand dollar adjustment but may end up redefining the very purpose of the civil courtroom. Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. 29:41 We hope you feel thoroughly well informed.
