Mapping the World: Facts and Meaning in Adjudication and Mediation

This Article explores what is and what is not in adjudication and mediation, thus illuminating the profound differences between these two processes. The Article does this work in four parts. First, it offers an analysis of cognitive mapmaking and its inevitability in constructing meaning. It then explores how adjudication defines meaning in a particular way.

This Article then conducts a comparable analysis of mediation. Finally, it focuses on the bridging function attorneys play between the worlds of mediation and adjudication in light of the Author’s analysis and the practical implications of this function.