In the popular 1980s television show The Peoples Court, the host signed off by admonishing viewers not to take the law into their own hands, but instead to, Take them to court.


Several years ago, though, more people began staying out of court through a process called alternative dispute resolution, and sources in the legal community say that trend is still strong and growing.


The trend is that its becoming more and more prevalent, says Jim Craven, longtime Spokane attorney and owner of Pacific Dispute Resolution LLC, of Spokane. Its a very user-friendly process.


With the increase in demand, some longtime Spokane-area legal professionals have started their own dispute-resolution companies over the past five years, and many large law firms here now have partners who focus on that field, Craven says.


Alternative dispute resolution is a term the legal community uses to describe private trials, arbitration, and mediation. Of these, mediation generally is considered the most common.


Gary Bloom, a partner in Harbaugh & Bloom PS, of Spokane, says a private trial is similar to a bench trial in which a judge decides the outcome of a case, the main differences being that a private trial is decided by a legal professional other than a judge and is held in a private location instead of a public court. In many instances, he says, the parties agree beforehand that the private-trial decision is binding and cant be appealed in any manner.


With arbitration, the proceedings rules are more relaxed than they would be in a trial, but the person whos overseeing the proceeding still determines the outcome. By state law, appellate rights in an arbitrated case are limited, Bloom says.


One benefit of these two alternatives, he says, is that a case can be decided quickly compared with when it would be heard in the courts, which sometimes have a 1 1/2-year backlog of cases. The downside, he says, is that the parties must pay to conduct the proceedings in addition to paying their own attorneys.


Mediation is different from private trials and arbitration in that a mediator doesnt decide a case, but rather works with the two disputing parties to help them come to a resolution.


While resolution isnt guaranteed in mediation, the process often is successful, Bloom says.


The system works, says Bloom, who estimates that half of his legal practice involves alternative dispute resolution. I dont keep a stat on it, but Id say its about 90 percent successful.


Craven cites a similar success rate, saying that between 70 percent and 80 percent of the cases he mediates are resolved on the day that a mediation session is held.


Of the cases that arent resolved that day, half are resolved within a few weeks, says Craven, who was a founding partner in Evans, Craven & Lackie PS, of Spokane, and practiced law for 27 years before starting the dispute-resolution business roughly five years ago. He remains of counsel to the firm and also teaches an intensive, two-week course twice a year at Pepperdine Universitys Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution.


Mike Donahue, a retired Spokane County Superior Court judge who started Judicial Mediation Group LLC with fellow retired judge Jim Murphy, says alternative dispute resolution can be used in a broad spectrum of disputes that arise in domestic relations and business matters.


Types of cases frequently brought to dispute-resolution companies include personal injury, medical malpractice, and conflicts in the workplace, such as wrongful discharge.


In some cases, Donahue says, disputes that wouldnt typically go to litigation, such as a property-line dispute between neighbors, lend themselves well to mediation. He says people seem especially compelled to settle a dispute through mediation if there will be a continuing relationship, whether they be neighbors, co-workers, or a couple that has children and is going through divorce.


The likelihood of a continued relationship working is stronger if those people mutually decide how to settle a dispute rather than having a judge do it for them, Donahue says.


Craven says that generally, mediation is a one-day event, rather than a series of meetings carried out over a number of days or weeks. The exceptions are divorce resolutions, which often include too many factors to resolve in one day, and public-policy issues, which often need approval from more than one decision maker to move forward.


In a mediation setting, some mediators start with a general discussion among all involved, then split the clashing parties into separate rooms, with the mediator going back and forth between the two groups to try to broker a solution.


Others place the adversaries in separate rooms from the start.


Bloom says the cost of a mediation varies depending on the time involved and the complexity of the subject matter, but generally falls between $1,200 and $1,700.


Typically, he says, the parties split the mediation bill, but that doesnt include the expense of each partys own private counsel thats usually present at the proceeding.


Alternative dispute resolution has been around for a number of years, but attorneys seem to be embracing it more in recent years, Bloom says.


He says that when he first started offering dispute resolution about 10 years ago, participantsespecially other attorneyswere skeptical of the process.


People thought, What are they going to tell us about our case that we dont already know? Bloom says. Since then, however, more attorneys have found value in the process, he says.


Donahue says courts have embraced it as well. Some judges will send cases to mediation or arbitration now, he says.