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We study optimal methods for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), a technique to achieve settlement and avoid costly adversarial hearings. Participation is voluntary. Disputants are privately informed about their marginal cost of evidence provision. If ADR fails to engender settlement, the disputants can use the information obtained during ADR to determine what evidence to provide in an adversarial hearing. Optimal ADR induces an asymmetric information structure but makes the learning report‐independent. It is ex ante fair and decreases the disputants' expenditures, even if they fail to settle. We highlight the importance of real‐world mediation techniques, such as caucusing, for implementing optimal ADR.

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We introduce informational punishment to the design of mechanisms that compete with an exogenous status quo: A signal designer can publicly communicate with all players even if some decide not to communicate with the designer. Optimal informational punishment ensures that full participation in the mechanism is optimal even if any single player can publicly enforce the status-quo mechanism. Informational punishment restores the revelation principle, is independent of the mechanism designer's objective, and operates exclusively off the equilibrium path. Informational punishment is robust to refinements and applies in informed-principal settings. We provide conditions that make it robust to opportunistic signal designers.