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To give you some sense about the potential far-reaching impact of a newly enacted bill of the Texas Legislature on the mediation process in Texas, I am providing you with the information below. I am responding to a request of one of our TMTR members, Mike Amis, who is the Association for Attorney Mediators (AAM) representative to TMTR. I have cut and pasted and paraphrased a bit from his email messages and exchanges with his colleagues to give you .

Texas House Bill 2256 [ http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/pdf/HB02256F.pdf ] was signed into law on June 19, 2009. The bill provides a procedure for mediation of “balance billing,” which is the practice of billing insured patients for amounts or balances not covered by the insurer. HB 2256 also includes the following section on “bad faith” mediation. Please see the above webpage for the text of the Act.

Blog Comments
Below are comments from Karl Bayer’s blog www.karlbayer.com This is what alerted Mike and others and spurred Association for Attorney Mediators (AAM) to do what it could to alert folks and to plan for its modification/repeal in 2011. Karl Bayer serves on AAM's committee to see and, to the extent we can, oversee the impact/administration of the Bill.

One commenter on the above referenced blog says the following of the new law:
1. it makes the mediator the “cop” of the mediation; hardly a role that will inspire parties to be candid;
2. it gives the mediator almost unlimited power to require the parties to produce “information” which I’m assuming includes documents the parties might object to producing on legal grounds; and,
3. it blows a hole in mediation confidentiality as wide as the sky, permitting the mediator to make a report about conduct he or she considers to constitute bad faith, which would obviously require the mediator to disclose confidences.
I’m curious about the scope of mediation confidentiality in Texas and whether this bill is at odds with those protections. If so, which provision prevails?

Another commenter says the following:
The process they describe might be a swell process — it is just not one that a mediator can participate in “as a mediator” and still maintain membership in a professional society having a code of ethics requiring that the mediator maintain confidentiality.

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	Member Services Family Mediator Resources: For those mediators who mediate family cases or for anyone wishing to help parents, below are some resources: Free video "For Our Children: Learning to Work Together Co-Parenting Guide" and booklet on Co-Parenting as well as other parenting resources from the Texas Attorney General's Office: http://www.oag.state.tx.us/cs/publications_cs.shtml For free Sticker Calendars to help kids visualize which days of the month they are with Mom, and which are days they are with Dad: Contact Anita Stuckey at: anita.stuckey@cs.oag.state.tx.us House Bill 2256 To give you some sense about the potential far-reaching impact of a newly enacted bill of the Texas Legislature on the mediation process in Texas, I am providing you with the information below. I am responding to a request of one of our TMTR members, Mike Amis, who is the Association for Attorney Mediators (AAM) representative to TMTR. I have cut and pasted and paraphrased a bit from his email messages and exchanges with his colleagues to give you . Texas House Bill 2256 [ http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/pdf/HB02256F.pdf ] was signed into law on June 19, 2009. The bill provides a procedure for mediation of “balance billing,” which is the practice of billing insured patients for amounts or balances not covered by the insurer. HB 2256 also includes the following section on “bad faith” mediation. Please see the above webpage for the text of the Act. Blog Comments Below are comments from Karl Bayer’s blog www.karlbayer.com This is what alerted Mike and others and spurred Association for Attorney Mediators (AAM) to do what it could to alert folks and to plan for its modification/repeal in 2011. Karl Bayer serves on AAM's committee to see and, to the extent we can, oversee the impact/administration of the Bill. One commenter on the above referenced blog says the following of the new law: 1. it makes the mediator the “cop” of the mediation; hardly a role that will inspire parties to be candid; 2. it gives the mediator almost unlimited power to require the parties to produce “information” which I’m assuming includes documents the parties might object to producing on legal grounds; and, 3. it blows a hole in mediation confidentiality as wide as the sky, permitting the mediator to make a report about conduct he or she considers to constitute bad faith, which would obviously require the mediator to disclose confidences. I’m curious about the scope of mediation confidentiality in Texas and whether this bill is at odds with those protections. If so, which provision prevails? Another commenter says the following: The process they describe might be a swell process — it is just not one that a mediator can participate in “as a mediator” and still maintain membership in a professional society having a code of ethics requiring that the mediator maintain confidentiality. Member Services Updates Please contact us if you have other information that might be helpful to our members. Contact Webmaster