New York state court system officials are pushing forward with an effort to increase the use of alternative dispute resolution in the courts, which they say is an underused method of helping to move cases more quickly through the pipeline.  

Office of Court Administration officials said that employing arbitration, mediation, neutral evaluation and collaborative law to handle certain cases could save courts and litigants money that they would have spent on pricey litigation, as well as clear up court backlogs, which has been a top priority for Chief Judge Janet DiFiore since taking the reins of the state judiciary in 2016.