The Challenge
The Maine Court System has long been a pioneer in providing Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in a broad variety of court cases. These include domestic relations, small claims, larger civil and commercial cases, and land use and environmental disputes. Most recently, ADR has been employed in support of the state’s Foreclosure Diversion Program, which was introduced in 2009 to help homeowners and lenders achieve mutually agreeable decisions for mortgage foreclosure actions. In order to track and report on the growing number of cases in the Foreclosure Diversion Program, as well as the numerous other cases handled through ADR, the Maine Judicial Branch commissioned the development of a system to report on ADR outcomes, as well as manage and pay mediators who work within the ADR system.
Our Approach
ADRIS, the application developed for MCS, provides a rich, entirely web-based interface for mediators, financial personnel, and program managers who monitor the ADR system. ADRIS creates and tracks profiles for all mediators within the system, and allows mediators to enter detailed reports of all mediation sessions, as well as submit payment and expense requisitions. Program Managers are then able to view and create reports based on numerous criteria, such as date range, outcome, geographic area, or mediator.
The Result
Initially launched in 2011, the ADRIS application is a rich, interactive application providing much of the functionality of a traditional desktop application. It has provided tremendous benefits to the ADR system, both in terms of data integrity, and in monitoring the success of the Foreclosure Diversion Program.
Project Update: In 2020, after providing flawless service for almost ten years, our team updated various back-end components of ADRIS in order to maintain security and performance. Work included replacing Spring Framework components with their latest versions, and upgrading the password hashing algorithm to ensure the application meets contemporary security standards. As a second, separate initiative, we updated ADRIS to integrate with the State’s Odyssey case management platform (from Tyler Technologies), providing for the seamless exchange of data between the two platforms.
