Litigation

When a conflict between two parties arises and there is a need to resolve an issue, the parties often have to resort to a form of litigation. There are two major routes that can be taken in this instant. The traditional form of litigation (trial, jury etc.) or non-traditional litigation (mediation, arbitration etc.). There are reasons for the parties choosing the way that they go, and this paper will outline the two types of litigation and the reasons that a party would choose one over the other.
Traditional litigation is the route of using the civil court system. In the civil court system there is a head to head battle in which one of the parties is declared the winner and one is the loser. Now however, many parties are choosing to go with an alternative way of resolving conflicts, Alternative Dispute Resolutions, also known as ADR.
The traditional form of litigation requires a complaint to be filed with the court system, this gives the person being served (the plaintiff) a time to respond to the complaint. After the complaint has been filed, the next steps are pre-trial and trial. During this trial a judge or jury will decide the final outcome of the complaint. The time and costs of a trial range and can be very high. This is why the Alternative Dispute Resolution is an avenue that many parties chose over the traditional approach.
When pursuing a traditional litigation, there is a serious amount of time and money that must be invested. This can be a drawback for some parties because as they are pursuing a decision, they have to spend money and run the risk of not gaining the decision. Also during a traditional litigation process, the records become public record. This is a problem for many because it can expose trade secrets and other inside information that can be used by other companies against the company.
Alternative Dispute Resolution is a way that a company can avoid some of the drawback’s that are seen in the use of traditional litigation. The