Two stories currently making headlines in Canada provide the occasion to harken back to previous posts on this blog. Mediation Backlog – Ontario No-Fault Auto Insurance Disputes  In March of this year I blogged about the consequences of under-resourcing mandatory mediation programs. The Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) had (and still has) a huge…

To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that mediation is confidential. Go on any training course, listen to any mediator’s opening speech, and the secrecy/privacy of the process will be affirmed and reaffirmed. In the commercial mediation arena, and these days most other practice areas, you will also sign a contractual undertaking…

This month I want to share with you a little gem of a mediation book, published late last year by the Irish state-funded Family Mediation Service (FMS). I wanted to review this book for two reasons – first of all, because it is an excellent publication which, though written in the context of the 25th…

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…

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,…

The evolution of society, its population growth and the consequent increasing complexity as to relationships made it necessary that the natural right to justice become a right guaranteed by the State. That came about due to the fact man used to make justice himself using physical violence and imposing his own interests. Access to Justice…

Hong Kong is the global city of designer ‘labels’ as even the most reluctant of shoppers cannot fail to observe. It is also the city of fakes – fakes with labels and fakes without labels – and the place where the ‘No Fake’ label and the ‘No Label’ label thrive! Confused? Well don’t worry, Hong…