Metro Court Project: A Study of Mediation and Adjudication in Bernalillo County (Albuquerque), New Mexico, Small Claims Court, 1990-1992

This study used court records and interviews with disputants, litigants, and mediators in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, to compare the effects of ethnicity and gender in mediated versus adjudicated small claims disputes. Initial structured telephone interviews with both adjudicated and mediated claimants and respondents (Parts 1-4) were conducted. Follow-up questionnaires (Parts 6-8) were then administered to the initial interviewed groups. Data from mediators (Part 9) were collected from self-administered structured questionnaires. Pertinent questions from all eight survey instruments were combined into a master file (Part 5). This data collection also includes two qualitative summary files of adjudicated and mediated cases (Parts 10-11). The unit of analysis is the small claims case.