principal techniques is mediation (arbitration is another) in
which the disputing parties arrive at their own solution with the help of a mediator who has no power to impose a decision but who plays a considerable role in helping the parties do so.
Today there are over 200 community-based groups formed to mediate disputes. Some deal with landlord-tenant disputes, others with domestic problems, and many, such as the truly creative Community Board Program in San Francisco, focus on the sorts of corrosive neighborhood disputes that have never been handled by the formal court system because there was no profit in doing so.
Mediation’s popularity has grown quickly in the last decade, not
