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