Opinions of legal professionals regarding the selection of appropriate resolution method in construction disputes

The construction industry has managed to develop and adopt many unique methods to resolve disputes that occur in projects. However, the justification for implementing these methods has been primarily upon contractual requirements, government regulations, court order or basic reactionary instinct but not on measured utility. Despite being an industry keenly focused on quantitative results, many researchers in the field argue that parties involved in a dispute fail to analyse the actual utility associated with each dispute resolution method in a particular situation. Indeed, due to the fragmented and complex nature of construction projects, there is no one best way of dealing with disputes, as often they are different in scale, complexity and nature. In deciding which dispute resolution method to apply, there may be a need to take into consideration various external factors, such as technical, political, financial, social, economical and legal. In this context, this paper aims to examine the current practice in dispute resolution method selection in the Turkish construction industry through interviews with legal professionals. The results reveal remarkable findings regarding the opinions of the legal interviewees on the importance of method selection, parties' behaviour patterns in the selection process and how legal professionals advise their clients in determining the appropriate method.