ABSTRACT
Innovations to settle disputes rely on a few basic techniques. Unfortunately, even professional dispute resolvers do not always refer to the same process when they use a particular word to describe it. The basic processes for settling disputes are negotiation, mediation, and adjudication. Unassisted negotiation involves only the people enmeshed in a dispute. Assisted negotiation involves outsiders to a dispute, who bring the parties together and, most of the time, help them to resolve their own disagreements. In negotiation every party has a stake in the outcome. Negotiators often get locked into positions, insisting on receiving everything they want and refusing to make concessions. In some situations, "mediators" may not even be purely neutral as to the results of a particular negotiation. The extent to which a mediator familiar with relevant laws, regulations, or precedents should tell the parties about them is hotly debated.
