Litigation

By: Stephen P. Lagoy

Stephen P. Lagoy

It has been estimated that, if all costs are included, Fortune 500 Companies’ total litigation costs average about one-third of their after-tax profits!  This fact has led large corporations to increasingly utilize creative non-traditional approaches to dispute resolution.  One advantage of private dispute resolution is that the parties can customize the process by which the dispute will be resolved rather than having the process imposed by the Federal or State Rules of Civil Procedure.  This can result in substantial savings.  For example, some corporations submit claims to mediation early in the process – in some cases, before suit is filed — before full-blown (translation: expensive) discovery has taken place.  Parties agree to narrow the scope of discovery to a limited amount of information seen as critical to the resolution of the dispute.   For disputes settled at this stage, the discovery cost savings can be substantial.

For more information on how ADR can help you, please contact our office.

By: Stephen P.  Lagoy

You may find interesting retired Justice O’Connor’s view on arbitration in this excerpt from the August 10, 2009 on line edition of the Wall Street Journal:

WSJ: Has your circuit service affected your views of mediation, arbitration and other alternatives to litigation?

Justice O’Connor: Well, I have been a strong advocate for alternative dispute resolution ever since I was a state court judge. I found a need for alternative dispute resolution and I found it more satisfactory in many cases for the litigants than going to court. For instance, the mediation of a case means that each side gets to meet separately with the mediator and tell him just what they think without objections and interruptions from counsel. They get to tell their story as they want to tell it. And that is so therapeutic for them. The mediator had to get to the nub of it and eliminate the stuff they shouldn’t consider. But in terms of the litigants themselves, we know that very often it is more satisfactory to them to have gone through that process than through an ordinary trial court process. And depending on the circumstances it might be much less expensive. But it depends on the state and the system and the whole ball of wax. It could be just as expensive and just as frustrating. But I think in general terms it’s provided a welcome alternative to litigation.

Read the full article here.

For more information on how arbitration and other forms of alternative dispute resolution could help you, please contact our office.

By: Stephen P. Lagoy

If you are interested in how the arbitration process works, read this article from a recent edition of Forbes Magazine.

For more information on types of alternate dispute resolution, please contact our office.