Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
PORTALES — When embroiled in a debt lawsuit, the last thing anyone needs is the additional hassle of taking time off work, getting to court and wading through months or years of legal proceedings.
Hence a new “Online Dispute Resolution” initiative, starting this month as a pilot program in six counties including those of the 9th Judicial District.
From April 2018 to April 2019 there were 287 debt and money-due cases in the district court of Roosevelt County and 613 in that of Curry County, Judge Donna Mowrer told The News. That’s 900 local cases in a year’s time, the likes of which might never have to require plaintiffs or defendants setting foot in a court if the program proves successful.
Statewide, about 31,000 such lawsuits were filed in the same time frame.
Mowrer said the idea originated after state Supreme Court Chief Justice Judith Nakamura and other judges attended an innovation summit last year in Vancouver, “looking for ways to innovate in how to actually increase access to the system” and “to make our courts work smarter, not harder.”
A debt or money-due case “seemed like a good place to start,” Mowrer said, since “you’re already in a situation” where your resources might be strapped.
Examples of such cases include a bank suing someone over credit-card debt of a hospital bringing a lawsuit over unpaid medical bills.
The ODR program is voluntary, and negotiations move forward in court if no agreement is reached within 30 days. All it adds is the opportunity for both parties to “negotiate at their convenience through online exchanges from home, a business or any location with internet access using a computer, smartphone or mobile device,” according to a news release.
It empowers the “growing numbers of New Mexicans (who) are representing themselves in civil lawsuits ... by making it easier to navigate a legal system that the public often finds complicated and confusing,” 2nd Judicial District Judge Jane Levy said in the release.
That said, parties can still “agree to request the help of a trained mediator during the first two weeks of negotiation,” said the release.
The pilot program debuted Monday in the 9th and 6th Judicial Districts and will be implemented next week in the 2nd Judicial District.
A representative of the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts said there wasn’t yet a strict time table for evaluating the effectiveness of the new program, but “the goal and the plan is in fact to expand it statewide” for the benefit of the courts and the parties involved in a lawsuit.
“We think it’s going to offer the opportunity for both sides potentially to save time and possibly money, in resolving these kinds of cases. Obviously it could certainly be more convenient to many people than having to make an in-person appearance. If you live in a rural (setting), you don’t have to travel,” Barry Massey told The News. “That would (also) allow the courts to redirect some resources, freeing up judges to focus on the more complex civil cases that typically can take longer to resolve.”
More information on the initiative is available at
