manufacturers of consumer goods. These corporations view mediation as a way to escape million-dollar jury awards in personal injury and product liability cases. It galls me to hear these big business interests, which regularly tout aggressiveness as an effective business technique, suddenly espousing the consensual virtues of mediation and arbitration as a better and cheaper way to resolve disputes.
At the very least, the marriage of ADR and the American business establishment causes one to ask from whose pocket the big savings will come. According to the ADR capitalists, savings result from the fact that ADR techniques vastly reduce attorney fees and court expenses. This makes a certain amount of sense;
