Originally from Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation

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Justice may be blind, but it is not always just.

An order in a child custody battle may not serve the interests of the children and likely does not promote harmony between warring parents who must negotiate lifelong relationships with each other because of those children. An order in a will contest will settle the distribution of the estate, but will likely harm the willingness of children of the deceased to have anything to do with each other—a loss to those children and to their children who will never enjoy the closeness of cousins. An order distributing partnership assets is both the death knell for the partnership and the death knell for any chance of a continuing relationship between business partners who may have spent years pursuing mutually inspired dreams and goals.

If you start as an attorney and segue into service as a mediator or an arbitrator, you experience fluid borders. When you serve as an advocate, you may well see avenues for settlement that risk analysis dictates your client should travel. When you sit as an arbitrator, it may pain you to render an award that is far less perfect than a mediated settlement would produce. And when you serve as a mediator, you may ponder the wisdom of a settlement when you know a party could have done much better in arbitration.