Alternative Dispute Resolution

George Orwell said, “The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.” Sometimes in litigation, such as debt collection or injunctions, you can overwhelm your opponent’s trenches at an early stage. However, often in litigation, it is not over by Christmas. In the way that War Ministries are now called Defence Ministries, sometime in the last few years Litigation Departments became Dispute Resolution Teams. The “team’s” mission is to find a resolution to your dispute rather than just open hostilities and see how it goes, which seemed amongst clients to be the preferred method for centuries, or certainly as far back as I can remember. Apart from mediation and tribunals, there are two other main alternatives to a court case: Arbitration - This process replaces courts and judges and their resulting delays and red tape. Nonetheless, arbitrators produce their own delays and red tape and arbitrations can be presided over by people who are not judges but have always wanted to be. The popular