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The Civil Procedure Rules recognised in Wales and England imposes a positive duty on the court to encourage parties to use an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) procedures if the court considers it appropriate, from the forgoing it could be inferred that achieving unbiased and objective dispute resolution is no longer the exclusive claim of the adversarial legal process as hitherto claimed by liberal societies. In addition, exact practices of adversarial legal system scarcely exist, since the daily life of court now involves routine departures from its original fundamental ideals. Nonetheless, growing evidence depict that mediated outcomes are more likely to be complied with than court decrees contrary to the position of pro adversarial advocates. Premised on the above insinuations, this paper seek to affirm the merits of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) over the conventional litigation system in other to debunk the opinion of liberal culture which positions adversarial procedures as an ideal dispute resolution mechanism. The concept of introducing a neutral third party to intercede in a hostile and antagonistic relationships is not new to dispute resolution; rather the question is on understanding the raison d'être for the gradual shift toward ADR. For Marc and Mia, multitude of factors which include legal, sociological, and economic, contributes to a party's decision to settle out of court. It is believed that the shortcomings in the adversarial system in resolving disputes especially those involving parties from different countries fuelled the emergence of ADR. The proponents of this supposition hold that domestic laws relating to jurisdiction of courts in most countries were not tailored to accommodate eventuali... ... middle of paper ... ...and mediation which are the popular forms of ADR. The ADR methods include negotiation, early neutral evaluation or neutral fact finding, conciliation, mediation, mini trial, med-arb etc. It is argued that the key factor in ADR application is that all it’s’ method are designed to assist the disputing parties resolve their differences in a manner that is creative and most suited to the particular dispute. Yet these achievements are not sweeping enough to conclude that the adversarial procedures are irrelevant. Though some people see ADR methods as supplanting the adversarial system, but these thoughts could only hold water where the courts in many jurisdictions are unable to resolve all disputes in a manner appealing to litigants, but until then ADR methods will be designated as collaborative dispute resolution system with the conventional litigation system.

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