Law Commons^™

Mediation As One Step In Adversarial Litigation: One Country Lawyer's Experience, John R. Phillips

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This experience stands in stark contrast to the thesis of Professor Deborah Hensler in her article, Suppose It's Not True: Challenging Mediation Ideology. Therein, Professor Hensler attempts to link social psychological research that she interprets as showing dissatisfaction with the use of mediation compared to adjudication, which, in turn, leads her to conclude that clients should prefer counsel who ordinarily can resolve cases successfully without the help of mediation.7 The fallacy of Professor Hensler's argument is evident in several respects. For one, she relies far too heavily on her own intuition and previous empirical research of marginal relevance, and on …