Litigant attendance at a dispute resolution process impacts their assessment of the fairness of that process, according to research conducted by Donna Shestowsky. The impact of litigant attendance differs for settlement and adjudicative procedures. As she notes in her article, “Great Expectations? Comparing Litigants’ Attitudes Before and After Using Legal Procedures” (Law and Human Behavior, June 2020) [sub. req.], this has implications for how lawyers shape their clients’ perceptions of individual procedures.
Shestowsky found that when litigants attended a settlement procedure used to resolve their case, they rated that procedure as fairer than those litigants who attended an adjudicative procedure. However, when litigants did not attend the procedure used to resolve their case, they saw settlement and adjudicative procedures as similarly fair. When comparing attendance within procedures, she found that attendance did not affect fairness ratings for settlement procedures, but that those who attended an adjudicative procedure rated the procedure as less fair than those who did not attend the procedure.
