Dispute Processes: ADR and the Primary Forms of Decision Making

Michael Palmer and Simon Roberts
Available through Lending Library Only - a paperback copy can be purchased through Amazon for $35.
This wide-ranging study appears at a moment when, in many jurisdictions, entrenched approaches to dispute management are under re-examination.  New professionals in dispute resolution, with their offer of mediation and other services, now represent alternatives to the lawyer's often preferred practice of achieving late settlement through litigation.  In the UK, stimulated in part by Lord Woolf's reports on reform of the civil justice system, the field of "ADR" is rapidly growing in importance.  Potential litigants and lawyers increasingly need to be aware of the range of dispute resolution processes – including negotiation and mediation – other than litigation, and today's legal practitioners will find it increasingly necessary to develop skills beyond those traditionally associated with the civil courts.  This text provides a much needed, theoretically informed and practical introduction to this vital yet relatively uncharted area.

Dispute Processes:  ADR and the Primary Forms of Decision Making brings together and analyses a wide range of materials dealing with dispute processes and the current debates on civil justice.  With the help of a selection of texts beyond those ordinarily found in the emerging alternative dispute resolution literature, it provides a broad, comparative perspective on modes of handling civil disputes, with a principal focus on the central processes of negotiation and mediation.  This study is mainly addressed to students of the law.  It is hoped that it will also appeal to sociologists and anthropologists interested in the relationship between disputes and their management, and those concerned with the development of new ways of providing legal and other dispute resolution services.