Originally from ADR and the Law - 22nd Edition

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A puzzling and controversial shift in dispute processing occurred in late 20th century America. This involved a turning toward alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Both official and informal disputing were profoundly affected. How can this change be explained? Was there a motivating “crisis” in the courts? If so, what were its ingredients? The rise of ADR presents an opportunity to examine the ways in which cultural change interacts with more specific social forces to affect disputing. I argue in this article that, quite apart from a perceived litigation crisis, the move to ADR in the late 20th century has had institutional, political, and cultural ingredients. More specifically, as I explain later on, it was dependent on sometimes-conflicting shifts in values, such as those involving a growing distrust of government, humanization of large-scale institutions, the privatization of dispute resolution, social progress through individual improvement, and post-modern skepticism about an objective reality.