Atkin Bldg
London WC1R
UK
The City Law School, in conjunction with The ADR Forum of the Centre for the Study of Legal Professional Practice present Professor Susan Blake’s inaugural lecture, “The contractual basis for Alternative Dispute Resolution: a platform for party autonomy or the privatisation of justice?”
The use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is growing rapidly. Based on the principles of contract law, options such as arbitration and mediation allow parties to control the process through which a civil dispute is resolved in a flexible way. Party autonomy is highly valued, not only in relation to resolving commercial disputes, but across a range of legal areas. In the modern world there may be attractions in shifting from an adversarial system towards one that gives more control to those who are involved in disputes, and contractual principles provide a sound basis for this.
However, problems with the shift towards ADR have been identified by a range of commentators, for example as regards the need to protect the public development of precedent in the common law system. This lecture raises further questions about the interface between litigation and ADR – how can we best balance party autonomy and the development of an effective framework of legal rights as we move towards a world where legal disputes may increasingly be resolved online, while higher value disputes may be settled by private agreement?