As courts have become more burdened and short of funds, they have increasingly turned to private judges, referees, or special masters to resolve discovery disputes. This panel will address the pluses and minuses of this trend, including the consequences of having a parallel system of justice for well-heeled parties, the consequences of having cutting-edge issues of, for example, e-discovery, resolved in private, the advantages and disadvantages of having discovery motions carefully considered and extensively litigated, how to work effectively with a referee, and so on. The panel will include in-house and outside counsel, and either a judge who sits as a referee or a representative of an organization like JAMS. We will also present sample case studies of “the good, the bad and the ugly.”