The Next Step: Research on How Dispute System Design Affects Function

Despite claims that ADR offers "better" solutions than traditional approaches (such as the courts), the field of dispute resolution has trouble proving its case. The reason is that we lack baseline data on the effectiveness of both traditional and nontraditional dispute resolution methods. Practitioners and researchers of dispute resolution should work together and in collaboration with public and private sector institutions to incorporate systemized data collection and evaluation into ADR practice. The growing subfield of dispute system design offers particularly rich ground for such collaboration between the research and practice communities.