The term settlement in modern legal systems has come to represent the voluntary cessation of a litigated action. Essentially, settlement is short for “settlement of a claim.”

The concept of settlement has advocates and detractors. Advocates promote settlement primarily because they believe the following to be true:

• Settlement is more likely to produce compliance with the outcome—the fact that disputants voluntarily accept the terms of the settlement leads to a lower instance of appeal or reconsideration than that associated with an imposed outcome.
• Settlement is more costand time-efficient than litigation, especially today when courtrooms and verdicts are scarce commodities, criminal matters are prioritized [Page 1364]in the allocation of those resources, and the time and expense associated with mounting a trial are very high—often higher than the value of ...