Steering Committee Report

Speaking to the Annual Meeting of the Institute in May, 1985, Chief Justice Warren Burger called for an ALI study of litigation and its alternatives. His address included these remarks: For some disputes, trials will always be the only means, but for many claims, we simply do not need trials by the adversary contest. As we now practice it, that system is too costly, too painful, too destructive, and too inefficient. My submission is this: Has the time not come for a careful, thoughtful, objective examination-a typical American Law Institute study-of the whole litigation process under the common law system[?]