* The views expressed here are entirely my own! Nine years after its conception by the Law Reform Commission, a draft Mediation Law, the Mediation Bill 2017, was officially presented to the Irish parliament by the Minister for Justice this week and the debate on its provisions was thereby initiated. Rafal Morek has outlined what…

The year 2016 has so far been a significant one for Singapore in the area of ADR. The opening of the Singapore Legal Year saw the Chief Justice of Singapore, Mr. Sundaresh Menon introducing various ADR-related initiatives in family justice cases and medical malpractice matters. This has been explored in a previous blog entry here….

[A talk given at the recent “100 cases” event in Glasgow to celebrate two years of small claims mediation provided by Strathclyde Mediation Clinic. Judges in Scotland are known as “sheriffs”.] I’ve been rather enjoying my belated return to the small claims court. Like a kind of slow theatre, each Friday afternoon unfolds with impeccable…

Over the past months, indeed years, I have been blogging about Ireland’s proposed new regulatory regime for mediation contained in the draft Mediation Bill 2012. 2012 2016 It was stalled and delayed and, despite promises which started in the Programme for Government back in 2011, and were made as recently as last summer, has not…

11 January 2016 saw the opening of the Singapore Legal Year. As is tradition, the Chief Justice of Singapore, Mr. Sundaresh Menon delivered his address to the legal fraternity. In his address, there were a number of initiatives relating to mediation which the writer would like to provide readers an update on. The Chief Justice…

First of all a very happy New Year to all our readers! May 2016 bring you peace, happiness and many, many hours of successful mediation. Here in Ireland, all we would really like is for it to stop raining, even for an hour or two. With the last month having been the wettest on record,…

When someone asks me to explain what mediation is, I often find it easier to tell them what it is not. Sometimes I will start by asking them if they are familiar with litigation or arbitration, and use those modes of dispute resolution as a point of comparison. I often see workshops and seminars introduce…

In 2006 Frank Sander produced his ‘Mediation Receptivity Index'(22 Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, 599-618). The MRI would be a way of discerning the extent of ‘mainstreaming’ or ‘institutionalization’ of mediation in different US states. It doesn’t seem to have caught on, but among the questions Sander lists are: PROVIDERS – number of professional…

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am exercised by the question of justice in mediation. I test the concept on people I meet; responses range from “that’s an interesting idea” to “it has nothing whatever to do with it”. At a conference earlier this year a senior lawyer claimed he could count…

We have just reached the end of the annual marking season (grading for North Americans). The verbal joust of examinations is almost over. Students get their blows in first; teachers’ strike back with marks and comments. It’s a familiar ritual with its own rhythm and reasoning. It can be viewed as arduous by both sides…