In law school I had the\u00a0impression that Alternative Dispute Resolution was a practice area separate from litigation. Seemingly, there was a Chinese wall between the trial advocacy classes and ADR classes. After all, my ADR classes never discussed the techniques for cross-examinations, and my trial advocacy classes never discussed mediation or arbitration strategies.<\/p>\n
The ABA Young Lawyer Division\u2019s latest newsletter perpetuates that myth in an article entitled \u201cTop Ten Mistakes Litigators Make in Arbitration.\u201d Certainly, the article gives good advice in\u00a0telling us what to avoid \u2014 serving excessive document requests, using delay tactics, not cooperating, not being prepared, introducing redundant testimony, and filing untimely submissions. However, that advice is equally applicable to litigation as it is to arbitration.<\/p>\n
In my experience, the differences between litigation and arbitration are cosmetic.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Although arbitration proceedings are often described as being less formal than traditional litigation, this lack of formality does not mean that the preparation is any less. Substantively, each type of proceeding has the same objective \u2014 to resolve a dispute. To that end, the tasks that must be taken to ensure that the dispute is resolved in your client\u2019s favor are the same \u2014 strategies need to be developed, facts need to be gathered, documents need to be collected, and witnesses need to be questioned. And, I also suspect that it is just as stressful for a witness being cross-examined in an arbitration proceeding as it is in a court proceeding.<\/p>\n
Likewise, I view mediation as part of the litigation process rather than a separate \u201calternative\u201d because courts often order the parties to attend mediation. Mediation is a useful part of the litigation process as it forces both the attorneys and their clients to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of their positions and also the financial impact of taking the case to trial. This exercise in analysis should be engaged in early and often throughout litigation, but sometimes a scheduled mediation is a necessary catalyst to get the parties to focus on the \u201cbottom line\u201d and truly assess the strength of their positions.<\/p>\n
To those of you who are still in law school, I urge you to consider ADR classes not as a separate practice area, but as another weapon in your litigation arsenal. Learning how to use ADR methods in litigation will serve you well as you help your clients to reach satisfactory resolutions of their disputes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In law school I had the\u00a0impression that Alternative Dispute Resolution was a practice area separate from litigation. Seemingly, there was a Chinese wall between the trial advocacy classes and ADR classes. After all, my ADR classes never discussed the techniques for cross-examinations, and my trial advocacy classes never discussed mediation or arbitration strategies. The ABA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,36,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-education","category-legal-practice","category-mediation","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}