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Combining mediation and arbitration In sequence can be a fair, efficient and cost-effective process for resolving disputes. Hybrid "med-arb" proceedings that seek to combine the virtues of medication and arbitration can offer real advantager to clients, including reduced costs, certain resolution of the sispute within a reasonable time, nad enhanced client control over the dispure resolition process. Such combined "med-arb" proceedings may also pose significant disadvantages for participating clients, and important ethival issues for the neutral, however, when the proceeding call for the mediation and the arbitration to be conducted by the same person. This article reviews these issues.
In recent years, the ADR community has seen increasing experimentation with "hybrid" proceedings that seek to combine the virtues of mediation and arbitration. For example, these "medarb" proceedings are a frequent feature in many mass-tort settlement ADR programs that have been reviewed and approved by the courts in recent years.1 Similarly, a 1997 survey of the ADR practices of Fortune 1,000 corporations showed that approximately 40% of the more than 600 companies that responded to the survey had some experience with "med-arb" ADR procedures.2 In a breakdown by major industrial groups, 23 % of that survey's respondents in the service industries, and 13 % in the transportation, communications, and utilities group, listed "med-arb" as their preferred ADR procedure.3
Definition of Med-Arb
Med-arb is a generic term that may have many different meanings. Indeed, one of the recommendations of this article is that parties who wish to employ a "med-arb" dispute resolution process should spell out in detail in a written protocol exactly what process they wish to follow before the proceedings begin. For purposes of this article, we will be using the term "med-arb" to refer to any ADR procedure combining mediation and arbitration in sequence.
Advantages of Med-Arb
An increasing number of parties have concluded that combining mediation and arbitration in sequence can be a fair, efficient, and cost-effective process for resolving disputes.' Combined med-arb proceedings can offer parties important dispute-resolution advantages, such as: The parties can obtain a certain resolution of their dispute within a reasonable time.
The resolution can often be achieved at a reduced cost and with improved overall efficiency.
A med-arb proceeding may appeal to clients because it offers them...