The New Judge: The Judge as Conflict-Manager

Abstract

To make solid and consistent legal decisions well grounded in current case law: that is what is expected of judges in civil disputes. But does this approach solve all the issues that bring people to the courts? Sometimes it does, but frequently this is not the case. An entirely ‘legal’ process often does little to address the underlying issues of the dispute, yet quite regularly these unresolved underlying issues bring people to the court time and time again.

Can judges be made responsible for addressing the underlying conflict of legal disputes? And how do the parties and their attorneys involved evaluate this approach? These questions were leading in several pilot projects in the Dutch courts. In these pilot projects, judges have taken up the task of what we have defined as ‘conflict management’. In this paper we examine the different roles judges have and the way these roles have developed over time. We also describe the essential ingredients of judicial conflict management. We will discuss the results of the Dutch pilot projects ‘customized conflict resolution’ and explore the benefits and challenges of the role of the judge as a conflict manager.

Keywords: Judicial conflict management, judicial case management, customized conflict resolution

JEL Classification: K10, K40, K41