Our thanks to David W. Dresnick  of the Arbitration Mediation Group for passing along the recent New York Times article on the Vanishing Jury Trial -- Cases Keep Flowing in But the Jury Pool is Idle
By Adam Liptak, April 30, 2007 New York Times.

This excerpt was of the most interest to me & the most surprising:

The jury trial is a distinctively American tradition in a cultural sense, too. Almost all civil jury trials in the world take place here, and 90 percent of the criminal ones. But that tradition, which Prof. Paul Butler of George Washington University calls "as fundamental a part of our culture as jazz or rock 'n' roll," is dying.

(emphasis mine)

David Dresnick also generously passes along Knocking Heads Together from the February 3, 2007 issue of the Economist.  Excerpt below: 

Knocking heads together

Why go to court when you can settle cheaply, quickly and fairly elsewhere?

THE Bank of Credit and Commerce International's lawsuit against the Bank of England lasted 13 years and cost some £lO0m ($196m) in legal fees. The Bank of England's governor disgustedly described it as "the most expensive fishing exercise in history". The presiding judge, Mr. Justice Tomlinson, called it a "farce".

Had the parties agreed to mediation it would have taken probably a day and cost just a few thousand pounds. According to the London-based Centre for Effective Dis¬pute Resolution (CEDR), one of Europe's biggest mediation bodies, of the 3,000 or so commercial disputes that are subjected to mediation in London every year around 70-80 % reach a settlement within one or two days, with a further 10-15% settling a few weeks later.

Litigation used to be the natural way of settling disputes, especially in advanced countries. Then clogged courts and ever costlier lawsuits made arbitration look bet¬ter, especially in cross-border commercial disputes. But it often proves no cheaper, fairer or even quicker.

In America, from filing a complaint to arbitration decision takes, on average, 16.7 months. So out-of court alternative dispute resolution (ADR) procedures, such as mediation, are now in vogue. The late Sir Michael Kerr, former president of the London Court of Interna¬tional Arbitration, was a leading convert.

"In the same way’s I have had my mind changed about litigation in favor of arbitration, my long devotion to arbitration is now being eroded," he said.

for more, click here.