When I was first trained as a mediator in the late 1980s, it felt like alternative dispute resolution (ADR) was more than a profession. It felt like a movement for good.
Across the country, organizations devoted to mediation and dispute resolution were gaining momentum. The National Institute for Dispute Resolution, the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution, the National Association for Mediation in Education, and many others were popping up and helping define a new way of thinking about conflict resolution. National conferences brought together thousands of people. Law schools began adding courses on ADR. And, in 1987, the American Bar Association (ABA) established the Standing Committee on Dispute Resolution, which later became the Section of Dispute Resolution in 1993 and quickly grew to be the largest ABA Section at the time.
For those of us entering the field in the 1980s, it was an exciting time. The cultural shift was palpable. A nationwide movement of like-minded people was slowly changing the norms around how disputes could and should be resolved. I remember hearing Brian Williams say “win-win” on Late Night with David Letterman and feeling like the ideas we cared about were finally moving into the mainstream. Conversations about collaborative problem-solving, dialogue, and interest-based negotiation were becoming part of the broader culture.
As a result of that success, ADR slowly became part of the establishment. Mediation programs that students once petitioned universities to create became integrated into housing offices, where quarrelling roommates were often directed to use them. Community mediation efforts, once staffed by passionate volunteer mediators trained in active listening, were increasingly absorbed by the courts. Family mediation, among other mediation practice areas, became more common, more formalized, and in some cases, mandatory.
As ADR became part of the establishment, it also became easier to take for granted. What once felt radical began to feel routine. Like filing taxes online or driving through an automated tollbooth, a once-transformative idea became part of the infrastructure of daily life. And when an idea becomes infrastructure, people often stop noticing the values that made it powerful in the first place.
That’s why this moment matters.
Today, it can feel like the core values of ADR are falling out of public favor. American culture feels like it’s shifting away from dialogue, mutual understanding, collaboration, and the idea that conflict can be “win-win.” Instead, those values are being overshadowed by a more bare-knuckled, zero-sum approach to negotiation. The overall message seems to be: aggregating power to force the other side to bend to your will is in; reaching mutual understanding is out.
For those of us who have devoted our careers to mediation, that can be dispiriting. But history offers perspective. And what history reveals is that this struggle to advance constructive conflict resolution never ends. It is up to each generation to renew the values that underpin ADR.
The American Arbitration Association’s 100th anniversary is a powerful reminder of the longer arc of dispute resolution. The ADR movement of the 1980s was not the first time a movement arose to promote the peaceful resolution of disputes. A century ago, AAA founder Frances Kellor, along with contemporaries such as Mary Parker Follett and Jane Addams, shared the same passion for constructive engagement and practical dispute resolution systems as those who practiced in the 1980s. Kellor’s belief in dispute resolution as a way to empower parties to face conflict directly and constructively helped lead to the founding of the AAA.
As Kellor put it in her book “American Arbitration: Its History, Functions and Achievements:”
Through the organization of arbitration the Association has changed much of public indifference toward the waste and futility of unsettled disputes and inculcated the idea of the prevention and control of disputes. It … changed the perspective from the past to the future and away from cure to prevention.
That vision remains strikingly current. In fact, the AAA helped lay the groundwork for the later ADR movement that inspired so many mediators in the 1980s. Its support for organizations and initiatives dedicated to dispute resolution helped create the conditions for broader public and professional acceptance of ADR. What felt new in one generation was connected to the work of those who came before.
As history shows us, now is not the time to get dispirited. The world needs ADR now more than ever. We face a lack of access to justice, an increase of pro se litigants, and a crisis of confidence in the ability of dialogue to resolve disputes. Courts are overburdened. Communities are polarized. Institutions are being asked to do more with fewer resources. Individuals and organizations need fair, efficient, respectful ways to address conflict before it escalates. ADR is a powerful response to all of these crises.
The next chapter of ADR will not look exactly like the last one. It will be more digital, more data-informed, more accessible, and more deeply integrated into the systems people already use. Online dispute resolution programs in courts and communities across the country are expanding access to fast and fair resolutions. Conferences, hackathons, and new collaborations are inspiring the next generation of dispute resolvers. New tools are helping us pursue long-standing goals in new ways.
But technology is only useful when it serves the mission. The heart of the work remains human: helping people be heard, helping parties understand their options, helping institutions design fairer systems, and helping communities choose resolution over escalation.
At the AAA, that mission remains as important as ever: to lead the world in providing innovative measures to prevent, mitigate, and resolve disputes fairly and efficiently and advancing a future where fair, efficient, respectful, and collaborative conflict resolution is accessible to all.
That vision was considered radical a century ago. In many ways, it is still radical today.
Each generation of mediators inherits not only a profession, but a movement – one that has been renewed many times before and must be renewed again. And at a time when the world often seems to be moving away from dialogue, our task is to keep building the systems, tools, and culture that make dialogue possible.