Fitting the Forum to the Fuss While Seeking the Truth: Lessons From Judicial Reforms in Italy

The study uncovers an informative new judicial role arising from reforms in Italy, one that combines mediation awareness, adversarial settlement-seeking and inquisitorial truth-seeking, and which we named: "fitting the forum to the fuss while seeking the truth." We focus on the Florence first-instance court in Italy, whose model for implementing recent reforms encouraging settlement, mediation and judicial conciliation, is being replicated by other courts in the country. We examine the actual involvement of Italian judges in reaching consensual dispositions of civil cases and include a docket analysis of civil cases, findings from interviews with judges and an analysis of court observations.