There are two things immediately attractive about this book. The first is its cover, which shows a great photograph of a man teetering his way across a tightrope, burdened with lots of climbing gear. After some mental digression about how interesting his life appears to be compared with that of the average lawyer, the reader moves to an inner debate as to what this is supposed to say about alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

Presumably it is intended to reflect that ADR, if successful, can bridge the gap between parties – although one could make a number of points about how it is the parties who should meet in the middle rather than some tenuous rope connecting the two. (It took your reviewer quite some time to work this out, but that does not detract from the photograph.)