Canadian Lawyer

w w w . c a n a d i a n l a w y e r m a g . c o m M A Y 2 0 1 9 47 According to Stitt, the future of arbitration is "faster, cheaper with less process." He says the "vast majority" of disputes are not fit for the courts or traditional ADR. It is up to professionals like him and his peers to be creative and develop faster, less expensive processes — even at the expense of due process. The test, Stitt says, as to whether someone is sufficiently forward thinking is if they are comfortable with a dispute resolution being subject to the flip of a coin. "Many of my colleagues would say that that's heresy," he says. "The business people that I've talked to about it want to stand up and cheer." Stitt adds that much of the pushback concerning due process, which is focused on the satisfaction earned by parties through the process, comes from a mistaken confidence that long, drawn-out processes produce a feeling of fairness and justice. "They're less concerned about fairness because they think that, even in the long processes, they don't get fair results," he says. "So, they're going to be just as uncomfortable in a short process as they will [be] in a long process. "What we have to do is find a way to make due process faster and more efficient," Torrie says. "I don't think we can abandon due process. It's the bedrock of our system. So, we have to find more efficient ways to deliver due process." Stitt, with the support of partners at Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, went out on his own and started an ADR practice. Over 25 years, he has built ADR Chambers into one of the largest providers of private arbitration and mediation in the world. At the beginning of 2019, ADR Chambers and York Street Chambers — which was also voted on to the Top Arbitration Chambers list — merged and are now under the same management. Canadian Lawyer determined the top arbitration chambers through a month-long survey of legal professionals across the country. Since ADR Chambers and YorkStreet Dispute Resolution Group Inc. had merged at the beginning of the year but were separately voted on to the list, they are included as one among the top 10. The nine other top "What we've really seen in the last 20 years is a quiet revolution in a civil justice system, where the expectation of counsel and their clients is that you're more likely to see your case resolved in a meeting room than in a courtroom." Paul Torrie, Global Resolutions 416.640.4730 a m i c u s c h a m b e r s . c o m ARBITRATION MEDIATION CASE MANAGEMENT RESPECTED RESOURCEFUL RESULTS Sidney N. Lederman, THE HONOURABLE Q.C. Colin L. Campbell, THE HONOURABLE Q.C. Lee K. Ferrier, THE HONOURABLE Q.C. Susan E. Greer THE HONOURABLE Untitled-4 1 2019-04-18 4:25 PM

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