Chuck Grassley: “I rise at this time to introduce two bills. Both bills are designed to encourage what is known in the legal world as…”

“I rise at this time to introduce two bills. Both bills are designed to encourage what is known in the legal world as arbitration, which is a type of alternative dispute resolution and a means of settling differences instead of litigating them in the costly environment and adversarial environment of the courts. Our great American leader, Abraham Lincoln, wrote over 140 years ago, in 1840: ``Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.'' That is exactly what these two bills are designed to do. For over 20 years now, all three branches have looked for ways to alleviate the courts' crowded docket and to enable a civil litigant to have his complaint heard in a more expedient fashion. In 1976, in search of alternatives, Chief Justice Burger convened the Pound Conference on the Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice and asked its members: ``Isn't there a better way?'' There is, and that way is called alternative dispute resolution.”