Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

Courtrooms rarely provide the preferred venue to resolve lawsuits. Costing significant funds, resources and time, a dragged-out courtroom trial could take weeks or months, taking important company decision-makers out of the office and dragging them into the courtroom. At the same time, clients and their opposing attorneys often cannot see eye-to-eye either in settlement discussions, and need unbiased, independent help with seeking a solution.

That happy medium between settlement and courtroom trial is where alternative dispute resolution (ADR) lives. Barley Snyder’s team of practical yet aggressive mediators and arbitrators has helped clients achieve favorable, amicable and cost-saving solutions that can save business relationships. Leading the firm’s ADR Service Team is Stephen Linebaugh, a retired 20-year judge in the York County Court of Common Pleas. He is well-versed in decision-making and creative dispute settlement, providing a deft touch and careful contemplation for those that entered his courtroom. Judge Linebaugh is an arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association (AAA), founded in 1926 and is the world’s largest not-for-profit ADR organization. He has also worked as a mediator for the York County Board of Realtors.

Barley’s ADR professionals help resolve complex matters in areas such as:

• Banking
• General Business
• Health/Medical/Medical Malpractice
• Construction
• Employment/Labor
• Environmental
• Insurance
• Intellectual Property
• Municipal
• Orphan’s Court
• Personal Injury
• Real Estate
• Tax Assessment
• Zoning/Land Development

Judge Linebaugh and Barley’s team work in two major types of ADR:

Mediation
Consider mediation an “invited intervention.” Parties locked in a dispute who want to avoid protracted litigation call on an unbiased, third-party mediator to listen to both sides of the argument, then help those parties reach a resolution make a recommendation to both sides about how to proceed in the matter.

Arbitration
Arbitration is a legally binding ruling from an unbiased third party to settle a dispute between two entities. It’s the last bastion of ADR before a case enters the courtroom.

Some other forms of ADR the firm is qualified in include out-of-court trials, discovery dispute resolution, settlement conferences and early case evaluation.

For additional information on our firm’s ADR services, please contact Judge Linebaugh.