Alternative Means of Dispute Resolution: Practices and Possibilities in the Federal Government

In the early nineteenth century Alexis de Tocqueville predicted that the law would become a secular religion in the United States, and that every important political question would be turned into a matter for law and litigation.' History once again has proven de Tocqueville's remarkable prescience. Over the past two decades, there has been a staggering increase in litigation.2 Americans now are filing more lawsuits than ever before, and are litigating a wide variety of disputes that previously had been resolved through other means.