It is not uncommon to hear lawyers speak warmly of mediation in general, but when asked if they would recommend it for a particular case respond that they could not see it working. Related to this, lawyers who have developed well-honed negotiation skills may struggle to see how a mediator could improve on their outcomes….

These days, I don’t go to that many mediation conferences. I haven’t lost my interest or passion for mediation, I just find that the conferences are all full of mediators talking to mediators. And while some of my best friends are mediators, I don’t need a conference to talk to them. The harsh truth is…

In a previous post I had noted the absence of better inter-connection between the ICC ADR Rules (available at http://www.iccwbo.org/court/adr/id4452/index.html) and the new ICC Arbitration Rules (available at http://www.iccwbo.org/court/arbitration/id4424/index.html) although the latter now open the door, at an early stage of the arbitration proceedings (i.e. the Case Management Conference: Art. 24 para. 1 of the…

The Kluwer Mediation Blog provides an excellent opportunity for all of us to learn more about the practice of mediation around the world. I’ve had the privilege of training mediators in a number of places outside Canada including Russia, Albania, Uganda and  Lesotho and know that practice experiences vary widely from place to place. In…

I was pleased to read that this year’s ICC Competition went so well. Having hosted the UK Law Student Mediation Competition in Glasgow in November I was first-hand witness to the wholehearted, thoughtful way young mediators throw themselves into this work. They appear unaffected by the scepticism of older lawyers. All of this is very…

Picking up where I left off last post, I want to discuss what I consider to be a major problem with the Ontario Commercial Mediation Act, 2010 (OCMA) relating to the admissibility of evidence of what occurred during a mediation. Generally (with some exceptions) at Common Law anything said or done in mediation is inadmissible…

We live in an age when we all seem to try to get more out of our time. We try to expand time by doing things more quickly and more efficiently than we could before we had airplanes, computers, and all our other electronic devices. We have, however, also created more and more time pressure…

As I open each mediation session I remind everyone that the mediation is “confidential”, “without prejudice”, “off the record”.  I acknowledged that these three concepts don’t mean precisely the same thing at law but that for practical purposes it is our common intention and agreement that “what’s said here, stays here.” I know there’s more…

As we all know mediation is an interest-based method to resolve conflicts. Nevertheless it is not always easy to know: • which interests drive parties into a conflict • which interests make them want to resolve conflicts and • which interests have to be met in the solution. The first question I ask in the…

One of the things that has been exercising me for some time is the question of what constitutes success in commercial mediation. I ask the question because the experience of the London office of my international law firm – which has attempted to gather data on mediations in which we have participated for nearly 15…