The privatization of civil justice

The late 20th Century atmosphere of deregulation has permitted powerful economic players such as credit card companies, the securities industry, insurance companies, and banks to channel disputes raised by their customers, employees, and other contracting parties into various forms of private arbitration, ostensibly as a quicker, cheaper, and easier method of resolving such disputes.2 General enthusiasm for "diversion" of cases from the path to public judgment has led to the introduction of mandatory alternative dispute resolution into the litigation systems of many jurisdictions.3 In many U.S. states civil litigants are required to participate in private alternative dispute resolution proceedings, usually mediation, before their cases will be considered by the courts. In both arbitration and mediation, some form of effective judicial review is not an unreasonable price to pay for the privilege to use the public judicial power to compel resort to the private dispute resolution process and to enforce its results. * Most of the corrupting influence of potential future business from repeat players could be alleviated by providing mediation services within the civil justice system through persons employed by the courts.