Mediation: Sanity in the regulatory process

The regulatory process is in need of change. The adversarial model used by most regulatory agencies is an inefficient, expensive, and conflict-producing procedure. Ill-adapted to resolving issues of great public policy concern, regulation calls out for non-adversarial alternative processes to address the resolution of public policy disputes between the players in the regulatory process. The adversarial model of regulation mimics traditional courtroom procedures. It is designed to determine issues of fact, not issues of public policy with legal maneuvering used to shroud the development of facts. Conflict maintenance and not conflict resolution has become the hallmark of the adversarial process in the regulatory arena. Unlike the courtroom process which provides a certain finality to conflicts, the adversarial process in the regulatory process is perpetual.