Advancing Equity and Justice in Pakistan Through Alternative Dispute Resolution

For the past year, Street Law, Inc. has been working with the Pakistani nonprofit Legal Aid Society to increase justice and equity throughout Pakistan. We are working to institutionalize Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods within the Pakistani legal community.

For too many people, everyday interactions with the law are marred by injustice. Unable to navigate the legal system that affects their everyday lives, countless individuals are marginalized by the workforce, the economy, and society at large. 

This is especially clear in Pakistan, which has an enormous backlog of legal cases that cause litigants to often wait years, sometimes decades, for cases to be properly heard and adjudicated. 

These individuals, who often lack formal education or the resources to hire legal counsel to navigate the justice system for them, face an uphill battle in seeking justice through the Pakistani legal system. This is where ADR comes in. 

ADR is an alternative way to resolve disputes without a trial. Common ADR processes include mediation, arbitration, and negotiation. ADR is generally confidential, less formal, less expensive, less time-consuming, and less stressful than traditional court proceedings, all of which can help to reduce court backlog. 

However, ADR techniques are not commonly used in Pakistan, and ADR is not taught as a primary subject in law schools. 

To address this, Street Law partnered with the Legal Aid Society in late 2021, joining the Legal Aid Society’s five-year effort to tackle this issue. 

We began by developing a 10-lesson certificate course on ADR. This course will be taught in five law schools throughout Sindh province this fall. 

The course introduces students to the fundamental principles of negotiation, mediation, and arbitration, and includes multiple, engaging simulations. 

This August, we trained law professors from the five law schools on the certificate course to prepare them to teach the course this fall. 

“Our hope is that faculty will be able to go back to their universities and implement this course and encourage their students to incorporate ADR into their practice after they graduate law school,” said Amy Wallace, Street Law, Inc.’s Advisor to Law School Programs. 

The course launches at law schools across Pakistan in the 2022-2023 school year, helping to ultimately build a culture of conflict management and ADR and to increase justice and equity in Pakistan. 

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This program was made possible by funding from the US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.