The chapter questions whether Tolstoy’s ideology was weakening the legitimacy of imperial legality. Beginning with an overview of the state of Russia’s legal system, the chapter examines Tolstoy’s first encounters with the law as a student at Kazan University, his evaluation of public access to justice after the liberal reforms of the 1860s to 1870s, and his ideas of rule of law in general. Disappointed in law as a field of independent expertise, Tolstoy became more interested in true power, which he believed one could find in oneself by understanding the purpose of life. In order to obtain this power, he turned to literature, which he found to be much stronger than law. In his writing he could criticize both the social and political systems in which people participated and the way they had been conditioned not to recognize the horrors of these systems. The most disturbing example Tolstoy witnessed personally was people being forced to serve in the army during war and told that it was their sacred duty to kill. Believing, like his hero Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that the conditions of society corrupt people’s natural goodness, Tolstoy made it his mission to save people from such false ideas and actions being legally and socially imposed upon them.

Multi-tier dispute resolution clauses are provisions in contracts that provide for distinct stages, involving separate procedures, for dealing with and seeking to resolve disputes. Multi-tier dispute resolution is used in Russian practice. But it must be recognised that Russian procedural legislation in support of ADR is still in the making. The rules of law governing pre-trial settlement of disputes have undergone many changes recently. Nonetheless, the legislature has been undecided for some time on the precise categories of dispute in respect of which a mandatory claim procedure or protocol should be established. The lawmaker has therefore revised the law in a disorderly fashion and that has generated caused intense criticism from the professional community. The main aim of pre-trial dispute regulation in Russia is to reduce the number of cases submitted to the courts. However, the backlog of cases before the courts continues to be as it was before the implementation of the most recent legislative amendments and the pre-trial settlement of disputes still remains mostly formal insofar as procedure is concerned (whether entered into as a result of mandatory requirements under the law or settled out of court by the parties). This article will start with an overview of the Russian judicial system. It will then review the institutions mentioned above, as well as analyse modern judicial practice in their application. It will conclude with practical recommendations for the improvement of pre-trial dispute resolution in Russia.