The quiet child of the legal brood is the transactional lawyer. They are a group that offer hidden wells of future development for mediation. This group of lawyers has extensive and close ongoing relationships with the individuals clients–the people who work in corporate, government and commercial clients. Transactional lawyers are the ones who document their…

Mediation doesn’t require special premises. It can be conducted in any type of place. There are Native Title mediations for Indigenous Australians that can happen at least in part on the land in question, under a tree or on a hill side. Mediations in the workplace often happen in the place where the dispute originally…

Mediation has produced some surprising and unexpected outcomes. One has been its revolutionary speed of acceptance as a means of bringing a civil dispute to a conclusion without judicial determination. Judicial determination has a lot of benefits. One is that there is a clear, authoritative statement of the legal rights of parties in opposition. Another…

Australia is passing legislation encouraging parties to most forms of civil disputes to take genuine steps to resolve their dispute prior to commencing litigation. The idea came from a report of NADRAC (National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council) of which I am the new Chair. NADRAC advises the Commonwealth Attorney-General and has been in existence…

When do mediators get to talk to one another? There are of course various conferences. They produce a lot of useful papers and discussions but time is short. Co-mediators get to talk a little but it is usually about the issue at hand. Even mediators who work in a mediation practice are off mediating and…