Have you heard of “EndDispute”?

EndDispute is a good example of the corporate world looking after its own best interests. Commercial disputes are said to be on the rise and both governments and courts and corporate clients are more and more looking to alternatives to traditional litigation to reduce the cost of accessing and administering justice.

EndDispute was recently launched (early May 09) by former chief judge of the NSW Supreme Court Commercial Division Andrew Rogers QC along with ADR expert and academic Tania Sourdin and former Chair of Dibbs Barker Gosling, Peter Everett.

The founders have said in media reports that they decided to take the initiative and launch the new dispute resolution centre as a response to the massive legal costs generated in prolonged commercial litigation like the recent C7 case. It was also a response bred out of building frustration with court-annexed ADR that has a heavy focus on mediation and arbitration and lacks flexibility to cater to the needs of commerical disputes.

EndDispute will take on the full management of the ADR process OUTSIDE of the court processes and will address all the possible issues in a commerical dispute such as discovery, negotiation, neutral evaluation of discreet issues in the dispute, expert determination of some issues, mini-trials to dispose of some issues but relying only on documents submitted by the involved parties.

The founders have stated THE WHOLE CONCEPT IS FITTING THE METHOD AND THE FACILITATOR TO THE DISPUTE. They will seek to make more effective use of the whole range and scope of ADR technologies and resources.

This is a top end of town corporate response to the inadequacies and failings of the present court annexed ADR machinery. The current system has become too rigid and narrowly focused on both court appointed mediators and private mediators simply attempting to settle disputes by doing not much more than hosting an expensive settlement conference between the parties and their lawyers. Some ex judges have become very good at applying pressure to bring the parties to a final resolution but many fail to do justice to the full potential of skilfully and strategically applied ADR methodologies and simply preside over a hosted settlement conference acting as a shuttle service between the two camps after they bunker down in their respective rooms and commence the very linear and uncreative process of simply conveying messages to each other via the agency of the mediator.

There are far more and better ways that a skillful and proactive ADR practitioner can assist disputants to find a pathway to resolution of a dispute.

This National Dispute Resolver Blog will hopefully become a place where players in the justice system can openly debate and discuss what works and what does not work in different situations and sets of circumstances. Hopefully it will become a place where they can swap stories and provide valuable insights to each other. Why keeping winning strategies to yourself? Why not publish them here and by doing so help other ADR practitioners to lift their game and thereby deliver more value to their clients.

To Your Success!

Christopher Whitelaw

Greetings to all of you who are committed to the art of dispute resolution. In my opinion this is the most valuable skill that any lawyer (solicitor or barrister) can possess. A client with a dispute is generally wanting to get that dispute resolved and out of their life as quickly as possible and with the minimum of stress, inconvenience and expense. The client who enjoys being in dispute and relishes conflict and the cut and thrust of litigation is clearly in the minority and the interests and agendas of such clients should never be allowed to influence the art of effective dispute resolution that is desired and sought after by the majority.

So I open up the debate by pointing out some sobering facts that I know to be true based on my own 28 years of experience as a solicitor, barrister and mediator, from discussions with other players in the field of dispute resolution, from what I have heard from various speakers and commentators including high profile judges in both federal and state courts and from my wide spectrum of reading -

1. Most lawyers are not well versed in the art of effective dispute resolution strategies or aware of the full spectrum of alternative dispute resolution technologies and options;
2. Consequently, most lawyers are still failing to give effective and timely advice to clients who are engaged in a dispute about ADR options and strategies, even though they are bound to do so under most professional conduct rules and even though it is most likely the case these days that providing such competent advice is part of their duty of care to the client under the general law;
3. Consequently, the majority of disputes are still being transformed by lawyers into a set of litigation parameters, into legally cognisable compartments, that do not conform to what a lot of research reveals to be how clients would really like to be handled and have their disputes handled resulting in a major disconnect between many lawyers and their clients. Lawyers working within the confines of the litigation model automatically try to condition their clients to the legal system realities of that model. Clients perspectives of how they would like their disputes managed are often disregarded and bypassed as having no place within this model.
4. Consequently the majority of clients who take a dispute to this narrow, linear and monolithic model of dispute resolution come out the other end of the experience with a very jaundiced view of “the system” and of lawyers in general.

So this is the scenery in which I wish to open a national and transparent debate about our current systems and sub-systems for “dispute resolution” in its multiple arenas where disputes emerge and where they are channelled for purposes of ‘resolution’.

My own involvement as a lawyer and as a mediator is principally in the arenas of commercial disputes and tort disputes that invoke the law of negligence, causation and damages.

Via this blog I will endeavour to put forward certain personal views and expose them to constructive critique and comment.

Via this blog I hope to bring to you certain interviews that I intend to conduct with a wide range of players and doers in the field of dispute resolution. I will try to make these interviews freely available to you both in mp3 audio format and in text format. You will be able to easily click on a link to access the file and download it to your own computer or simply print it out.

But most importantly, I am hoping that this unique blog site will become a place for those of us who are seriously interested in the art of dispute resolution and who are constantly looking at ways to serve clients interests better to visit regularly and participate in a stimulating and constructive conversation about the core issues and about the choice of dispute resolution methodologies and technologies.

So I now sign off on this inaugural blog post and look forward to the possibilities and potential value that might come out of this venture.

To our constant progress and enlightenment for the benefit of all.

Christopher J Whitelaw

P.S. To find out more about me simply click on the link to the home page of my website