![]() ![]() The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, however, has gone further than any other major business or professional association in its dispute resolution effort. Such organizations have uniformly created mechanisms for the administration and enforcement of these codes and standards in the form of grievance and peer review committees. ![]() There are, of course, many trade and professional organizations that have established codes of ethics and professional standards to guide the conduct of their constituency and to assure its consistency with the public interest. Likewise, the widespread reliance on professional and business customs, usage, and course of dealing to determine the terms and conditions of a transaction or relationship has encouraged reference of disputes to those familiar with such custom, usage, and dealing. The very nature of commerce, involving as it does complex undertakings and understandings, dealings with multiple parties often at a distance, and promises of future or contingent performance, must inevitably generate controversy in proportion to the level of business activity. Since the earliest days, the special needs of commerce for efficient, inexpensive, equitable ways to decide controversies arising out of the course of business or professional transactions have been recognized. ![]() On the contrary, much of modern commercial law has evolved from the rules, customs, and usages developed and applied by business and professional associations through the “law merchant” as far back as the medieval guilds. The concept of a private forum for dispute resolution is by no means alien to or inconsistent with sound principles of jurisprudence. It is also intended to provide a means of applying the standards of professional performance that REALTORS® have imposed on themselves through the Code. Rather, the judicial system contemplated by the Code of Ethics is intended to complement and supplement the judicial resources of the state and provide an alternative means of dispute resolution that is cheaper, swifter, and as fair, or, perhaps, even fairer. Nor could it do so, lacking as it does the imprimatur and coercive power of government. This system is not intended or designed to replace the federal and state judiciary. The Code of Ethics, which every Board of REALTORS® is bound to enforce and every REALTOR® is bound to observe, requires the creation and enforcement of what amounts to a private judicial system. This article appeared in The Executive Officer, Vol. North, Past Senior Vice President and General Counsel, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® ![]()
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