Stuck In The Middle You're jammed between a court and a hard place. Get free with third-party mediation.

"See you in court!" yells the irate vendor just beforeslamming the door. The botched deal will cost both sides thousandsof dollars to correct, and frustration has erupted into blame andanger. As you reach for the phone to call your lawyer, you thinkabout the past lawsuits you've been embroiled in-hours ofdigging out documents for discovery, months of depositions andmotions, stacks of briefs and counter-briefs, days of tension incourt, thousands of dollars in legal fees, and all for what? Therehas to be a better way.

There is. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is growingnationwide, providing individuals and businesses with cheaper,faster ways to resolve disputes. The two major types of ADR arearbi-tration, in which parties hire private judges to decide theircases, and mediation, in which neutral parties help work outsolutions. The number of ADR cases submitted to the AmericanArbitration Association grew from 95,143 in 1998 to 140,188 in1999. Compare those figures to roughly 45,000 cases per year in themid-1980s. The association's case load for mediation grew 17.5percent from 1998 to 1999, reflecting the rate of growth in recentyears.

The growth may be because of increased recognition thatmediation lets the parties involved control outcomes. In litigationand arbitration, outcomes are decided by arbitrators, judges orjuries, whose actions can be unpredictable. Someone wins andsomeone loses.