Lessons from the Alternative Dispute Resolution Movement

Abstract

In less than a decade, alternative dispute resolution-ADR-has grown from a bravely-voiced hope to a congeries of practices animated by the desire to resolve legal battles outside the courtroom.' ADR offers a way-station, or a series of them, between the probity of the adversary system and the flexibility of private negotiations.2 Though not without an ideology, ADR has never had a unified theory to explain what it accomplishes and how it works. But enough experience has accumulated by now to permit a search for a more analytical understanding of ADR and the lessons it might teach.