Traditional litigation entails using the civil court to resolve dispute. The court processes, that is, from the start of a case to trial are governed by well laid down guideline of civil procedure. The traditional litigation system offers a system of justice where the judges are guided by stated rules and professional code of conduct. On the other hand, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is a non traditional way of dispute American Management Association, 2011).
ADR has a number of advantages over the traditional legal process. First, personal and secret information are not subjected to the judicial process which is open to all citizens as the case in the traditional litigation system. The advantage is mainly beneficial to companies which do not want to display a lot of information to their competitors. Secondly, the ADR process results to quick resolution of disputes since there are no defined processes that must be followed as in the case of the traditional litigation system. Further, the use of ADR is less costly as compared to the traditional litigation system. The traditional litigation process takes a lot of time making it quite expensive to manage. Further, decision made using ADR are fair because both parties actively participates in the decision making process. This results to satisfactory resolution unlike the traditional litigation process where the parties are not involved in the decision making process. Besides, the parties in dispute have a variety of remedies to choice from. Finally, ADR improves the relationship of the parties in dispute since the both parties are involved in resolving the dispute (Becker Legal, P.C., 2009).
Risk businesses and organizations encounter when using traditional litigation process
As mentioned above, the information arising from the traditional litigation process is open to the public and to media houses. This can permanently tarnish the name and reputation of the company thus resulting to decline in sales or profitability of the business. Besides, competitors of companies having legal cases can get to know secrets and other hidden information of the company to use for their own gain. Therefore, the traditional litigation process exposes information about a business or an organization to the public. This puts the reputation of the company at risk. Further, it gives the rival of the company a competitive advantage.
To mitigate such risks mentioned above, the company should be responsive to the business environment it trades in. Being responsive might entail taking actions such as adhering to the various regulations and laws that relate to the business. A business should continuously review the external business environment and note any changes which might result to litigation. Such changes should be included as part of business process (Cheeseman, 2010).
Appropriateness of ADR
The major risks that a business is exposed to as a result of using the traditional litigation process is tarnishing of the business’ reputation and exposing too much information to the competitors. ADR offers a remedy to these risks since the proceedings of the ADR process are not open to the public and media. Therefore, information of a company is made only available to the parties in dispute Sherman, 2011; Becker Legal, P.C., 2009). Use of ADR reduces the risks arising from use of the traditional litigation process.
References
American Management Association. (2011). What is ADR? Web.
Becker Legal, P.C. (2009). Advantages & disadvantages of traditional adversarial litigation. Web.
Cheeseman, H. (2010). Business law: Legal environment, online commerce, business ethics, and international issues. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Sherman, A. (2011). Alternatives to Litigation. Web.