2.Main Content
Types of ADR
This website menu outlines the ADR options which can be used as alternatives to court to try to resolve a dispute.
Resolving Disputes
Most disputes begin with a negotiation stage. Negotiation can take place directly between the people in dispute, or with an adviser negotiating on behalf of one or both sides. Where negotiation fails, the parties have to decide whether to give up, or whether to take things further.
The main options are:
Alternative dispute resolution (ADR)
Tribunals
Courts
Alternative dispute resolution (ADR)
If you want some prompts for thinking about whether ADR is a good idea for you, have a look at the Pros and Cons of ADR on this site.
If you want to know more about different kinds of ADR process in the UK, this website gives an independent overview of the main options:
Arbitration
Conciliation
Mediation
Ombudsmen
Each of these pages profiles some of the most common examples of this type of ADR scheme in the UK – follow the links to the schemes which interest you from the green box on the right of each page.
There is also a page covering Other ADR Options. This page gives brief information about schemes which are less well-known, but are used in commercial disputes:
- Adjudication
- Early neutral evaluation
- Expert determination
- Med-arb
- Med-rec
Tribunals
There are more than 80 tribunals in the UK, each dealing with a specific type of dispute. For example, there are tribunals to consider asylum and immigration appeals, benefits decisions, mental health issues and special educational needs decisions. Information about the different tribunals, and how they work, can be found on the The Tribunals Service website.
Perhaps the most well known tribunals are Employment Tribunals, which deal with a wide range of workplace disputes. Currently, some tribunals are piloting forms of ADR as part of their procedure. For example, employment tribunals in some areas are piloting the use of mediation to resolve disputes at an earlier stage in the process.
Courts
Sometimes disputes need to be taken to court in order to resolve them appropriately. This may be where there needs to be some way of enforcing a decision, where the parties are very unequal, or where a judge needs to determine a point of law so that others can rely on that decision in the future.
You can find out more about the different courts in the UK on the following websites:
The Courts Service in England and Wales
The Northern Ireland Courts Service
The Scottish Courts Service
June 2008
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