Kenosha County residents can mediate their small claims cases with help from Marquette University students.

More than 160 cases were mediated in 2008, avoiding costly court time and invaluable time and frustration.

“I’ve seen people coming out of the room shaking hands with the opposition, smiling,” said Kenosha County Circuit Court Commissioner John C. Plous, who oversees small claims cases.

Every Thursday at 9 a.m., Marquette graduate students meet with people who have certain small claims cases. Trained community volunteers, including local lawyers, police and firefighters, also help.

The program started with landlord-tenant disputes, mostly complaints about damages or unpaid rent.

But mediation now covers some contractor work, certain attorneys fees or small claims cases filed by people who lived together but were not married and are now separating, said Christine Harris-Taylor, assistant director of Marquette’s Dispute Resolution Center, which offers the program.

Mediation is voluntary, and most people who choose the option don’t have lawyers, like the majority of people who file small claims suits.

Counselors work on about five or six cases each week. Each session lasts about 90 minutes.

If mediation is successful, both sides reach an agreement, which Plous must approve. And the case can be resolved in as little as three weeks.

One side might still end up owing money, but mediators often can work out a payment plan. Some landlords even allow tenants to make repairs or paint, instead of paying damages.

“It’s creating options for people that the law does not provide,” Harris-Taylor said.

About 76 percent of cases that go through the Kenosha mediation program are resolved.

“The nice thing about mediation is if people are angry, they can have the chance to express their anger and frustration in a really controlled environment,” Harris-Taylor said. “Once they let it out and somebody talks to them, everything calms down. People are able to talk about it and let it go.”

The Kenosha County program started in October 2007, but really took hold last year.

A total of 162 cases had been mediated by early December, Plous said. And the number of mediation cases more than doubled in the second half of the year; 48 cases were assigned between January and June, with 114 assigned between June and early December.

Plous has tried to add as many cases as possible to the mediation list, but there are still limitations.

Car accidents are difficult, for instance. Crash cases often come down to a question of fault, which is a legal conclusion and beyond the authority of a mediator, unless one side admits responsibility.

But the cases that did qualify for mediation in 2008 helped take 123 potential court trials off judges’ calendars.

Before mediation, an unsettled small claims case would be set for trial before a judge, with the litigants often waiting two to three months for their day in court.

Once on the calendar, there was no guarantee the case would be heard as scheduled. That’s because a criminal or civil case, the proverbial bigger fish on the court docket, could demand the judge’s attention.

So long small claims court date.

That fate was avoided for the majority of the 162 cases mediated last year in Kenosha County. Of those, 39 cases never reached an agreement and went on. But a total of 102 were settled. Another 21 ended in default, because one side or the other didn’t show up.

Even in the defaults, Plous said, mediation seemed to make a difference.

“It made some people who weren’t serious about their objections to the case drop out,” he said.

One of the greatest things about the program is the cost.

“This costs Kenosha County nothing,” Plous said.

Marquette trains the volunteers, coordinates the mediation and brings the students from Milwaukee. Even a recent luncheon held to thank the volunteers was free; the county’s seven judges each donated $30 as a thank you for making their lives easier.

Plous also feels the program is uniquely suited for Kenosha County, which might be the only formal mediation program of its kind in Wisconsin.

“We’re large enough to have a volume to make it useful, but were not so large that it would be hard to manage,” Plous said.

And, Harris-Taylor said, the program connects people to the community.

Many of the student volunteers keep coming back, despite high gas prices and the nearly hourlong commute from Milwaukee, after their required three or four sessions.

Some, she said, are on their 10th, 11th or 12th mediation session. And they show no signs of slowing down.