Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Fall 2015, Vol 41, No. 3 | Page 9

BP: Let’s go back for a second and talk
about foreclosure mediation, because you
have been a leader in this area. I know you
do a lot of cases; I know you have been in
CLEs where you lecture on this, and on the
committee to propose legislative changes.
I see mediation as a way to really help the
court system get through those cases, because without that, I think things would be
a mess.
JEB: Yes, and I think this is a huge percentage of the civil docket and certainly
foreclosures come in waves, but the sheer
volume bogs down the court a lot. The
www.vtbar.org

statute exists to help borrowers because
a lot of them don’t even answer the complaint and they don’t know what to do, but
then of course, at or after the final whistle,
they come in and say, “Oh, what do I do?”
That does bog down the court system. Mediation is a great way to impart some understanding to the borrowers and get the
parties together to see if anything can be
worked out. In over 50% of the cases, and
I have done over 150, the borrower gets
a modification or it works out for the borrower in some way or another. You would
think taking out 50% of the cases where it
doesn’t involve the court at all until they get
a mediation report that says “modification
granted, case dismissed” is hugely valuable. Mediation generally is supposed to
do just that, by limiting litigation and creating resolutions. It would be nice to increase
mediations in all fields.

Interview with Jennifer Emens-Butler

got by the legislative session without losing very much. They are also in the process
now of recruiting three judges and a magistrate, hopefully later this year another two,
three, or four judges may be added back
to the bench. The next legislative session is
not very far away, and the revenue picture
for the state doesn’t look a whole lot better
for next year.
JEB: No, it’s a real problem. Fortunately, we don’t feel it as much in foreclosure
mediation cases, because while mediations
tend to take longer than the court thinks,
the courts are so busy that they don’t have
time to push us and we get it done on our
own. There are lots of horror stories about
trials being broken up over several months
and not being able to get court time ˈ]