Like a marriage, disagreements and periods of stress are inevitable. The way in which these disharmonies are handled can drive the parties further apart or serve to enhance and strengthen their overall relationships. Furthermore, the experts report that it costs the employer far less to repair a strained employee relationship than to recruit and train a replacement. Unfortunately, our legal system is based on an adversarial model. Like a sports team preparing for a critical game, from the first day of law school our lawyers are trained to advocate totally for their client's victory.
Defenses are concocted to minimize the impact of any weaknesses in their side's case.
The opposing side is attacked and demeaned at every opportunity. The bedrock principle underlying the adversarial means of dispute resolution is that if both parties advocate the respective claims of their clients to the max, the most just resolution of their dispute will result. Applying our traditional legal adversarial system to workplace disputes, however, is rarely the best means of dispute resolution. The adversarial system is expensive, disruptive and protracted. More significantly, by its very nature, it tends to drive the parties further apart weakening their relationship, often irreparably.