Binding and non-binding routes
The term covers several processes that sit outside an ordinary trial. Mediation and neutral evaluation are usually non-binding: a neutral helps the parties negotiate or gives an assessment, and the process resolves nothing unless both sides agree. Arbitration is different, because an arbitrator or a panel hears evidence and issues an award that is normally final, and courts review it on narrow grounds rather than re-deciding the merits. That difference is the first thing to understand, since the same label, ADR, can describe a voluntary conversation or a private substitute for a trial. Some contracts stack these steps, requiring negotiation, then mediation, and then arbitration if nothing else works.
When it is required rather than chosen
Many people meet ADR because a contract requires it. Arbitration clauses are common in employment, consumer, financial, and commercial agreements, and courts generally enforce them, although particular claims can carry their own rules; federal law, for instance, now lets a person bringing a sexual harassment or sexual assault claim choose court even after signing a pre-dispute arbitration clause. Courts also send cases to ADR on their own initiative, and both the New York state courts and the federal courts in the state have programs that refer certain matters to mediation. Before anything else, find the actual contract and any amendments, terms of service, or handbook that may contain the clause, since the version in force when the dispute arose is usually the one that counts.
What we weigh with you
When we review an ADR question, we look at whether a clause covers your dispute at all, who administers the process, where it takes place, how fees are allocated, and whether a deadline applies to starting it. We compare what each route would mean for cost, speed, privacy, and the ability to appeal, because arbitration's finality cuts both ways. If you are drafting a contract rather than facing a dispute, we talk through which process fits the relationship and the kinds of disagreements you expect. The aim of the first conversation is a clear picture of which forum you are in and what that forum will ask of you.
