Legal Toolkit Michigan Alternative Dispute Resolution

What to Do About Alternative Dispute Resolution?

Your first step is to discuss the benefits and potential of ADR with your litigation attorney.  In fact, in Michigan it is the obligation of attorneys who represent Plaintiffs and Defendants to discuss the potential of ADR with their clients if they believe their clients might be interested in or benefit from ADR techniques.  Your attorney will have had experience with a whole host of ADR techniques and can explore an ADR plan with you to pursue at the outset of your case (sometimes even before a complaint is filed) and throughout the life of your case. 

If you are not represented by an attorney, you should consider contacting the Macomb County Resolution Center.  The Resolution Center, through trained volunteers, provides resolution assistance at most affordable prices without the need to retain the services of an attorney.  As stated on the web site of the Macomb County Resolution Center:

Alternative Dispute Resolution and Conflict Resolution are terms that are being used more and more in every facet of today’s business, education, medical and legal professions.  Living in a democratic society, people understand the need to be able to trust their neighbor, contractor, attorney, landlord, consumer, accountant, doctor and local merchant. We depend on these trusting relationships to accomplish our goals and improve our place in life. Every so often, these relationships are tested through conflict.

The Resolution Center believes that conflict is a naturally occurring phenomenon and that it should be viewed as something positive. Conflict provides an opportunity for change.  It is up to those involved in the conflict to make the change positive or negative.

Restoring and maintaining relationships is a positive event that helps to build community rather than fracture and destroy. The Resolution Center provides the non-adversarial dispute resolution process of mediation that offers people the chance to seize the opportunity of conflict and create something positive… to help build community.  In this way, The Resolution Center is a catalyst for peace. 

The ADR Plan for the Macomb County Circuit Court recognizes the valuable services provided by the Resolution Center in the resolution of disputes.  Small claims disputes and district court conflicts are common sources of referrals by the courts to the Community Dispute Resolution Centers for resolution negotiations.  The mediators at these Centers are trained to work with unrepresented parties and facilitate a wide variety of commercial and domestic disputes.  For additional information on The Resolution Center visit its web site at http://www.theresolutioncenter.com.