ABSTRACT
Stephen C. Yeazell has suggested that too much settlement localizes, decentralizes, and delegalizes dispute resolution and the making of public law. This chapter provides a case for settlement by arguing that there are philosophical, and instrumental, democratic, ethical, and human justifications for settlements. It offers mostly theoretical justifications for settlement, which will require further empirical verification. The chapter discusses some of the objections and defenses of settlement. The concern that settlements deprive both litigants and the larger public realm of normatively based solutions lies at the core of David Luban's and Owen M. Fiss's criticisms. Luban's conception of dispute resolution, while described as democratic and organized around the public realm and public discourse, privileges law and legal principles as the only "just" way to resolve a dispute. Professor Luban concludes his essay by suggesting that people need certain settlements to be conducted in the public realm because they serve the "public-life conception of legitimacy" of the legal system.
