The Ongoing Role of Alternative Dispute Resolution in Federal Government Litigation

This essay demonstrates that within appropriate guidelines, ADR has an important and growing role in the conduct of government litigation. To the extent that ADR can help the government save resources, this alone is of considerable public interest. More importantly ADR can help the government settle entire disputes rather than those pieces of disputes that become litigation events. ADR also involves the parties more directly in shaping the resolution of a dispute, and can often provide a result that is beyond the capacity of a court to provide. Because of the direct participation by the parties in mediation processes, ADR can produce higher levels of satisfaction with outcomes. Thus, the government's use of ADR can lead to more just results.