Originally from Dispute Resolution Journal

As a lawyer, satisfying the needs of parties to seemingly unresolvable disputes is no longer simply a matter of counseling them in matters preparatory to litigation. The challenges of the ’90s require that practitioners be wellequipped to understand and deal with  alternative methods of dispute resolution. This article is designed to demonstrate to the private practitioner not yet experienced or learned in the ways of ADR that the effective use of such techniques will improve relationships with clients, satisfy the ethical and moral responsibilities of the industrious lawyer and allow lawyers to best utilize all of the knowledge and skills that they have developed during and since law school.

The anxiety experienced by outside counsel, particularly those with a specialty in litigation, when the subject of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) first arises with a client, is a sensation that must be experienced to be understood.1 Thosepractitioners who have had the good fortune to have been in-house counsel before leaving a corporation to join a law firm have undoubtedly learned to embrace all of the benefits and opportunities that ADR offers to today’s business organization2—but the private practitioner who has not been exposed to ADR fears such unknowns as: (1) giving up the relative comfort of the judicial system for the uncertainty of dealing with an unknown third-party “neutral”3; (2) the potential adverse impact on fee generation as a result of lost litigation opportunities; (3) the impact on the attorney-client relationship that results from a third party evaluating and, possibly, critiquing a client’s litigation position—a position that the private practitioner has probably created; and (4) the impact of a failed attempt to resolve a dispute using “alternative” methods.