Many environmental lawyers have recently experienced the emergence of a new type of prelitigation negotiation, involving hundreds of potential corporate defendants arrayed on one side against the combined resources of federal, state, and, perhaps, local governments. The issue in dispute is who shall pay how much to clean up hazardous waste disposal sites. The statutory impetus for the discussions comes from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act¹ (CERCLA) commonly referred to as Superfund. The scale of these negotiations is illustrated by the fact that the federal government has identified 280 potential defendants in the Chem-Dyne, Hamilton, Ohio Superfund matter and 430 in the Seymour Recycling Company, Seymour, Indiana matter. This new category of environmental dispute resolution may be referred to as "mega-party Superfund negotiations."

The intitial experience with mega-party Superfund negotiations has been instructive. The format and procedures pose unusual problems for the attorneys involved, and care must be exercised if one is to minimize the impacts of those problems on one's client. Moreover, there are fundamental flaws in the system as it now operates, flaws which might be significantly remedied by use of new dispute resolution techniques developed in other areas of the law.