Mediation

The Office of Adjudication provides mandatory and voluntary mediation services in workers' compensation claims. Workers' compensation judges provide these services at no cost to the parties.

Mediation can provide the parties with several advantages over litigating a case to decision. These include:

• Saving time, money and the stress of litigation
• Informality
• Improved communication between the parties
• More predictable results
• A greater measure of control over the outcome
• Finality

MANDATORY MEDIATION

Whenever a party files a petition with the Office of Adjudication, the judge hearing the petition will arrange for mediation. This mediation is mandatory unless the judge concludes that it would be futile.

Certain Judges’ offices have published mandatory mediation procedures unique to those offices. Click on the links below to view those procedures.

Philadelphia (Arch Street)

Malvern

VOLUNTARY MEDIATION

The parties may request voluntary mediation, even if the claim is not in litigation or they did not reach an agreement at a prior mediation. Instructions are available in the WCAIS How-To Guide labeled “Submit a WCOA Request.”

The following judges conduct voluntary mediations as their schedules permit. Click on the judges’ names to see questionnaires identifying their mediation procedures.

(Revise table based on questionnaires. Provide hyperlink to questionnaires.)

If you would like more information, contact the attorney representing you in your workers’ compensation case. If you do not have an attorney, contact the office of the adjudicating judge.