Business people and their advisers sometimes avoid the courts and use alternative dipute resolution solutions arrived at by the parties themselves by agreement with the assistance of a third party. This process is commonly defined as a process which encourages disputants to reach their own solution andin which the primary role of the third party neutral is to facilitate the disputants to reach their own solution. ADR methods include negotiation, independent expert analysis and mediation to try to avoid the inherent cost and delays involved in litigation in the court system.
Jusges who are usually SCs do not usually have the appropriate qualifications or resources to deal with disputes involvingcomplex technical, economic, environmental, medical and scientiffic problems. Some cases may be too technical for a courtroom to address adequately. Technically, arbitration is not included as part of the ADR world. In terms of its level offormality and obsession with proceedure it sits as a compromise between a courtand the normal ADR processes. There are a few different types of ADR which include industry based mediation, compromise, setlement or negotiation out of court and mediation. One of the most popular of these types of dispute resolution is mediation.
Mediation often begins with failure of the parties to settle a dispute which may lead them to get thehelp of an impartial third party such as a mediator or conciliator to resolve the disput. Mediation is a structured process with a neutral independent third party to help the parties reach their own resolution ot the dispute which has developed. If the mediation fails, it will often then go back to a more formal type ofdispute resolution such as an arbitration or court based litigation.