33rd / 424th District Courts

Effective immediately mediator fees do not need to be paid via the District Clerk's office. The mediator is to be paid directly and the mediator will be solely responsible for the fiscal matters with the attorneys and parties.

The Clerk is still required to report all court-approved fees to OCA. This will be accomplished by the revised form the mediators will be filing as their report will include the fee section and the judge's approval will still be required on the form. There is a single line with the total fee for the Clerk's reporting.

Why the change? It had always been thought by the clerks and myself that the fees had to go through the clerk due to the reporting requirement. However, once I got to looking at it there was no requirement that could be found to that effect. Further checking with OCA's general counsel yielded the same opinion. This is expected to save a large amount of handling by the clerks and will expedite payment of fees to the mediators.