It’s never easy to get a grasp on national statistics for mediation. The closest we come in the UK is a biennial (that’s once every two years, not twice a year!) survey carried out by CEDR, for which I for one am very grateful. The latest survey results have recently been released and these are…

As you would expect, judges are appointed for their ability to adjudicate, often untested at the time of elevation to the Bench. Once appointed, many jurisdictions around the world then ask their judges to suspend their adjudication skills in favour of mediating controversies coming before the court, often in an effort to reduce backlogs. And it seems…

Two stories in the Canadian media caught my eye this past month. New Rules for Bank Mediators – The Federal Minister of Finance has indicated that the Canadian federal government will not require banks to mediate their disputes with customers through mediation services offered by the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI). OSBI is…

Scotland is a practical nation. The list of its inventions includes penicillin, anaesthetics, steam engines, tarmac roads and even the decimal point (see http://www.magicdragon.com/Wallace/thingscot.html#Ta). Like the rest of the UK its culture was in part forged by the ‘practical man’ of the Industrial Revolution, rejecting grand theory in favour of trial and error. Its lawyers,…

ADR in Brazil is a hot issue. The number of courses, events, discussions and debates over the present and future status of mediation is already significant and growing at high rates. For the people who are involved in the field, it looks like mediation booming.

There are reasons for this enthusiasm. The Brazilian Court System may have become an economic bottleneck. Given the slowness of the Brazilian Court System, in theory, there is a demand for quicker, more agile and informal ways of resolving disputes.

The adversarial process built into the Brazilian court system can no longer be the sole or even the preferred way to address disputes. It is expensive, slow and unpredictable. This situation calls (or screams) for the application of ADR. Mediation would seem to be the natural solution to be adopted in most cases.

Additionally, Brazil has already produced a significant number of well-trained mediators, a Code of Ethics following international standards and judges and court staff adequately trained and prepared to identify cases which could be referred to mediation. Despite the theoretically favorable environment, in practice, mediation is still not the preferred way to resolve disputes in Brazil. In fact, mediation in Brazil is adopted in a very small number of cases. Brazil has the need and the means to adopt mediation as a main stream form of dispute resolution, but somehow it has not happened so far.

It is a fact of life that lawyers will be involved in many mediations, particularly where they involve litigation matters. Despite initial reluctance to embrace mediation, the tide is turning as Sabine Walsh explains in her posting, Of Turkeys and Christmas – The Role of Lawyers in Mediation. A specialised form of legal practice is…

Yes I do –  and as I stood 4th in line outside Dick Smith’s (read  PC World or Radio Shack) at 5am Friday week ago waiting to get my hands on my first iPad I resolved to make the iPad 3 central to my practice. The guy next to me had been on the TV…

In mediation, the art of the mediator is to lead the mediation participants to the best possible solution of their conflict, based on their underlying interests. It is the art of seduction to shift the focus from their points of view and desired outcomes to interests, and also from the escalation-driven wish to “win” and…

In the land of plenty (austerity packages) and decennial litigation fights, a new hope seems to emerge for the first time. Mediation is in the mouths of lawyers and the minds of academics. It is also part of the MoJ’s agenda since 2010. My objective is to present you the mediation landscape in Greece, and…

In my capacity as a trainer and educator of mediators, I am frequently asked about entry into the mediation profession: “Once I pass my accreditation assessment, I want to become a full-time mediator…” The mediation training market continues to boom, confirming a continuing strong interest in mediation as a career path. However the supply of…