Litigation has failed us! It failed us before and it has failed us again. Litigation has led to loss of confidence in the legal system. It has denied people their rights to justice. If you have ever gone to court for justice you will agree with me that most of the times your expectations are dashed to the “marble finished floor” of disappointment.

Well, all hope is not lost. The world has got an answer to the pile of undecided cases in our law courts. The answer is Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). This is a dispute resolution mechanism which which holds into consideration your interests and your relationship with others. Unlike litigation, this process addresses the interests of diputing parties to their satisfactions and also ensures that the relationship between these disputing parties is in tact. So at the end of the day each party goes home happily and with a settled mind for another business meeting in the future. It is also interesting to note that ADR processes do not take a long time to come to an end,unlike the court litigations that take years to end. This is so because the arbitration ACT empowers the Arbitrator(s) (Judge(s)) to end a process and make his awards whenever he deems it appropriate. So when an ADR process is getting longer than it should, the Arbitrator (sole) or Arbitrators (Tri) can end the process and reach a decision for the pareties which they must abide to.

The processes include, Arbitration, Mediation, ArbMed, Mediative concilliation, Concilliation.

This system of acheiveing justice has its own court house called the MULTI DOOR COURTHOUSE. Just as the name goes, it is a courthouse which has many doors leading to justice. It gives an agrieved party the opportunity of decieding how to solve his case by himself, either by Arbitration, mediation, concilliation, etc.

Alternative Dispute Resolution processes in multi door courthouses is the new way! Check out the the contract you have just signed or about to sign (especially in construction matters), is there any clause refering any dispute that might arise to arbitration or any other ADR process (Clause 35 of the JCT)? If no is your answer, I enjoin you to go back to that contract document now and put in the ADR clause. I tell you this will save you the headache of injustice in the rainy day.

By,

Agugoesi Samuel .I

08034801772, 08073715477.