Mediation is the future—look on it as a great opportunity, says Martin Burns
While mediation as an alternative to going to court has been slowly increasing, it is not yet routinely used in the commercial sector. But things could be about to change. The coalition government is pushing the mediation agenda very hard indeed.
Little understanding of mediation
Comparatively few mediations take place. This might be down to the fact that there is little compulsion to do so. We know that the civil procedure rules encourage mediation, and gives power to the courts to penalise parties who fail to properly consider alternatives to trial. But it is clear that most parties, who end up in litigation, have little understanding of mediation. Added to this is the probability that many lawyers are trained litigators not mediators. They have simply not been incentivised to use mediation, and have found it fairly easy to wriggle out of it.
Mediation is a very useful tool for resolving disputes, and when it is used it is successful far more often than not.
