If you believe in the fairness and efficiency of the American litigation system, as we find it today, you are wasting your time at this website. After over 20 years practicing corporate law in the State of Texas, including numerous public and private financings and mergers and acquisitions, handling innumerable day-to-day problems as general counsel for public and private clients, and having the opportunity to lead an international public company, I have no confidence in our current system. It may be the best in the world, but it is far from optimum.
I have not once, in over 20 years, seen fairness and efficiency come from litigation. I have seen companies and people sue others, get a generous verdict after several years of time and trouble and turn 40% of the judgment over to their lawyers. I have seen companies and people defend themselves successfully from a wrongful lawsuit and work for many years to repay their lawyers. And I have seen 20 to 30 young attorneys reading documents that are older than them in connection with “discovery” battles that last years and cost the client over $3 million per MONTH. And these are the winners. The losers go home empty handed or with a sizeable judgment pending against them AND have to figure out how to pay their lawyers and avoid bankruptcy.
The main reason for this system is the increasing ignorance of our “peers.” It does not take a very close look at our education system and the television shows that our children watch to realize that the population is constantly being "dumbed down." The inevitable result is 12 jurors who are completely incapable of understanding business concepts, the value of a million dollars or even the concept of a billion dollars. You will most often get an equally fair result by flipping a coin.
This is not fairness, nor is it efficiency. It is insanity. It is the reason why we, as Americans, have to double our efforts in the world markets to compete effectively. And it is the reason why mediation was conceived. Mediation has enabled parties in a conflict to take control of their own lives and resolve their differences quickly and without the time and expense of attorneys. In the field of resolving legal controversies, mediation offers an informal method of dispute resolution, in which a neutral third party, the mediator, attempts to assist the parties in finding resolution to their problem through the mediation process.