There are several ways of settling legal matters. The most common and trusted way of course is to move court. Moving court refers to the practice of a case being taken to a court of law for consideration by a judge of the court who will take the ultimate decision after the cases of both the involved parties have been presented fully by the two lawyers representing each party. In some legal systems, there is also a panel of jury. So if the case is going to be taken to court, then either of the parties involved will have to hire a lawyer. If a party does not have a lawyer, the court might appoint an attorney or lawyer to fight the case for that party.
Appointing or hiring a lawyer has its obvious advantages. The lawyer will be trained and educated in the field of law and will have a lot of knowledge about the court, the proceedings, the possible outcomes and of course the law. It is important to hire a lawyer who has expertise in the field that the case belongs to. For example, it is meaningless to hire a lawyer who is a specialist in labor laws for a murder case! That would be a complete disaster and waste of money. And speaking of money, most reputed and experienced lawyers charge hefty sums of money. It is equally meaningless to appoint a lawyer who has no experience or is just a novice, or one who has a dubious distinction of having lost more cases than won.
But apart from a few well-informed people, few know that there are also other ways of settling disputes, without even going to the court. This is called alternative dispute resolution or in short, ADR. There are several processes for ADR: mediation, arbitration, private judge, collaborative law, circuit courts, pre-trial settlement, bar associations of the district or bar or county, the attorney etc. These methods may sound radical but actually they are even better in most cases. However, for important cases that involve matters of life and death or huge amounts of money or property, it is always advisable to go for a lawyer only.
Mediation is the process in which a third person or party plays the role of a mediator. The mediator will not have any rights to taking any decisions, which will ultimately be taken by the parties themselves. But the mediator can facilitate the process of settlement being reached by helping each party assess the different aspects of the case and revise the goals accordingly. The process of arbitration is very similar to that of mediation, except that in this case, the final decision will be taken by the arbitrator. The two parties will generally have little scope of challenging that decision. A private judge or the attorney of either party can act as the judge of the court and reach a decision, to which either parties have to agree. In a pre-trial settlement, both parties agree to make some compromises and once again reach an agreement and rest the matter without taking it to the court.
Also see: Criminal > Tips to Select a Lawyer