Settling Disputes: Conflict Resolution in Business, Families, and the Legal System

Rating:
Summary: Handy overview of ADR
Review: Alternative dispute resolution has enjoyed tremendous growth over the last couple of decades, and Linda Singer is as responsible for that growth as anyone. A longtime practitioner of ADR herself, she is eminently qualified to introduce the subject.

In this handy volume, that is just what she does -- from the origins and growth of the field, to the various types of ADR, to the fields in which it is useful and the conditions under which it typically succeeds (or fails). Moreover, the 1994 edition is heavily revised and updated to include developments in the field since the book's original publication.

Though not really a "how-to" book, the volume nevertheless contains useful insights into the nature of ADR practice and even excerpts from actual conflict-resolution sessions (for example a divorce mediation). Singer does not present ADR as a panacea for all the world's problems, but she does offer a very hopeful account of its broad and growing usefulness. Her discussion should be of interest to a wide range of readers with reason to care about alternatives to litigaton.

For one thing, ADR is often less expensive in both time and money than adversarial litigation -- and even when it isn't, because the process leaves as much power as possible in the hands of the parties themselves, its solutions tend to be more inclusive of the participants' own real interests and more conducive to the genuine harmonization thereof.

For another, ADR is a nice way to keep power out of the hands of political tyrants. As such, it should attrat the attention not only of libertarians and classical liberals, but generally of anyone who is worried about the overgrowth of legislation and litigiousness here in the good ol' U.S. of A. As with certain topics in the common law, the value and importance of ADR is one subject on which political thinkers of almost all stripes should agree.

There are lots of books out there about how to perform ADR. So far as I know, this is the only one that provides a principled historical introduction and overview. If you're interested in this subject, get this book.