| |
Washington Arbitration Services, the predecessor
to WAMS, was established in Seattle by attorney Michael S. Gillie in
1981. Mr. Gillie's objective in establishing WAMS was to provide an
alternative settlement forum for litigants involved in traditional
cases, such as automobile accident and consumer claims. Gillie found
some initial success with consumer claims resolution programs he
established for the Washington Attorney General's office, but in other
areas of the law, so-called "alternative dispute resolution" was still
not widely accepted. In 1985, Gillie and Seattle attorney Alan Alhadeff
agreed to work together to develop a mediation training and marketing
program for insurance claims. Their objective was to provide insurance
companies and plaintiffs' attorneys with an inexpensive and accessible
alternative to trial: mediation.
In the early 1980s, Gillie developed a claims
resolution pilot program for Travelers Insurance. Travelers agreed to
refer claim files into mediation on an experimental basis and track the
overall settlement and transaction costs versus litigation. In
conjunction with the Travelers project, Gillie expanded the business
model used to establish WAMS by franchising ADR businesses throughout
the U.S., Europe and Canada under the names of U.S. Arbitration &
Mediation, Inc. (USAM) and International Dispute Resolution, Ltd.
(IDR).
|
|
