Visualising the ADR Landscape

Abstract

Access to ADR can be conceptualised in a number of ways. Some commentators focus on the court or the legal profession as a central access point for disputes. While this may seem natural for lawyers and judges, such an approach fails to account for the vast majority of disputes – approximately 80 per cent – that never see a lawyer, let alone a court. Other commentators focus on private or community-based applications of ADR as well as transactional applications of mediation such as contract negotiations. Yet others analyse ADR from the perspective of particular stakeholder groups such as industry, insurers, minority groups, women, ADR institutions and the justice system.

However the big picture of how ADR is accessed and how it operates is important. The introduction of ADR, and in particular mediation. has created new opportunities for a number of professions, including law. For lawyers mediation is an opportunity not only to provide qualitatively and quantitatively better service to existing clients, it is also an opportunity to capture some of the 80 per cent market that would not traditionally seek out the assistance of a lawyer. From this perspective, it is valuable to consider the range of ways in which disputants and disputes access ADR.