5. A product of a consensual process.

The Mediation Act results from an historic collaboration. The Uniform Law Commission Drafting Committee, chaired by Judge Michael B. Getty, was joined in the drafting of this Act by a Drafting Committee sponsored by the American Bar Association, working through its Section of Dispute Resolution, which was co-chaired by former American Bar Association President Roberta Cooper Ramo (Modrall, Sperling, Roehl, Harris & Sisk, P.A.) and Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer of the Supreme Court of Ohio. The leadership of both organizations had recognized that the time was ripe for a uniform law on mediation. While both Drafting Committees were independent, they worked side by side, sharing resources and expertise in a collaboration that augmented the work of both Drafting Committees by broadening the diversity of their perspectives. See Michael B. Getty, Thomas J. Moyer & Roberta Cooper Ramo, Preface to Symposium on Drafting a Uniform/Model Mediation Act, 13 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 787 (1998). For instance, the Drafting Committees represented various contexts in which mediation is used: private mediation, court-related mediation, community mediation, and corporate mediation. Similarly, they also embraced a spectrum of viewpoints about the goals of mediation - efficiency for the parties and the courts, the enhancement of the possibility of fundamental reconciliation of the parties, and the enrichment of society through the use of less adversarial means of resolving disputes. They also included a range of viewpoints about how mediation is to be conducted, including, for example, strong proponents of both the evaluative and facilitative models of mediation, as well as supporters and opponents of mandatory mediation.

Finally, with the assistance of a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, both Drafting Committees had substantial academic support for their work by many of mediation's most distinguished scholars, who volunteered their time and energies out of their belief in the utility and timeliness of a uniform mediation law. These included members of the faculties of Harvard Law School, the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, the Ohio State University College of Law, and Bowdoin College, including Professors Frank E.A. Sander (Harvard Law School); Chris Guthrie, John Lande,