Participation as a Framework for Analysing Consumers’ Experiences of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

This article argues that an analytic framework based on participation is useful for analyzing consumer experiences of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and provides a complementary approach to analyses drawing on procedural justice theory. The argument is developed by applying McKeever’s “ladder of legal participation” (LLP) to a qualitative data set of 33 interviews with UK consumers. The article concludes that applying the LLP in the consumer ADR context results in novel empirical and theoretical insights. Empirically, it demonstrates that – despite low value and transactional disputes – consumers expect high levels of participation from ADR. Theoretically, the article argues that the LLP supplements existing approaches by: providing a unifying lens for studying consumer experiences, which goes beyond examining the relationships between process and outcome; emphasizing the importance of participation, not only as a process value, but also in shaping outcomes; and highlighting the distinction between genuine and tokenistic provision of consumer ADR