He stressed that mediation wouldn’t remove the statutory code for transparent decision making; but it would respect very much the representative roles of elected officials and gives all the many stakeholders in the process the ability to be very much involved in the confidential non confrontational discussions that take place in mediations. It allows departments to demonstrate a clear commitment to having in place a framework to avoid disputes where possible and to effectively manage and resolve disputes quickly and effectively utilising the most suitable dispute resolution mechanism. It is expected that very shortly the court of Appeal will be making a key pronouncement on mediation in a case called 'Halsey v Milton Keynes General Hospital Trust'.
As he says 'Financial pressure on some litigants may well mean that a mediated solution becomes a substitute for justice because the requirement to mediate is a fetter on access to justice'. There will now be automatic referrals to mediation for all small claims up to £5,000 which means that the court based small claims mediators will have a dramatic increase in the numbers of referrals of defended small claims – estimated up to 80,000. Whilst this has to be put in context, this is worrying as there must be an element of self preservation amongst junior judges and court staff such that mediation is perceived to be a threat.
With a good product at the right price that produces an inordinately high satisfaction rate we should pile off to Tescos and install our dispute resolution machines! I foresee that the next speech will be entitled ‘Cutting the Cost of Conflict – where goes civil justice’. Arnold Simanowitz, AVMA's longstanding Chief Executive, says that opportunities now exist to use mediation as a springboard towards developing new evaluative structures, and he sees an expanding roll for neutral assessors or gatekeepers*. This time they say that they used mediation on 314 occasions with 259 settling at an estimated saving of over £90 million in costs they did not have to incur. The Minister David Lammy who spoke at both Conferences emphasised the importance of bringing to the fore non financial remedies in successfully resolving disputes such as the Alderhey Hospital body parts settlement.
Fire Up Your Communications Skills: Get People to Listen ...I wrote this book to fire people up to communicate better. ... Be Your Own Executive Coach: Master High Impact Communications Skills for: Dealing With Difficult.The Lord Chancellor's Department has today issued a report to show how Departments have taken forward the Government's commitment to use alternative methods of dispute resolution (ADR) to settle its own disputes. From meeting and greeting the parties, managing their expectations early on, concertinaing offers and drafting agreements, he demonstrated a mastery over this subject even if this time limited approach wasn't applicable to every mediation. When reading this book I realized that emotions in response to what others say result from the lack of the kind of analysis the author suggests to do: evaluate the message as being valid/invalid, conversation as being equal/unequal, always know where you are in any conversation.
The event is free to members and any guest and you can The new chair of the CMC Sir Alan Ward and chief executive Jon Siddall were welcomed, and a hearty round of applause was given for the great work done by Sir Henry Brooke over the past 5 years. He outlines the general principles to be adopted: Judges should know if a party has 'failed to engage in the mediation process It's this last one that causes considerable interest as it might very much impinge on the mediator's confidentiality agreement. Full details of this years AGM held on 17th February are downloadable in the The report of Lord Justice Jackson on litigation costs was published in January.
Stop press – insurers announce new protocol for personal injury aimed at reducing the costs of resolving disputes The Association of British Insurers announced in November 2006 that it was establishing a new protocol for insurers to cut down the use of litigation to solve insurance claims. The government also hinted that it expected to continue to work closely with the Civil Mediation Council, to which ANM belongs, and that strongly hints that there is an expectation that the CMC will expect the CMC to regulate individual mediators as well as the training and the mediation providers. September 25 – CESIG Construction Group meets in Manchester with David Cornes October 24 – Evaluative mediation? An evening in Manchester with Michel Kalepetis QC In addition there will be regular meetings of local groups, the pro bono and new mediators groups. I decided to open this up as a separate discussion group as otherwise some of you might not be bothered to open the link and hence miss the importance of it.