Lawyers and Mediation

This book charts the historical and current interaction between lawyers and mediation in both the common law and civil law world and analyses a number of issues relevant to lawyers’ part in the process. Lawyers have in the past and continue to play many roles in the context of mediation. While some are champions for the process, many remain on the fringes and apathetic, while others are openly sceptical or even anti-mediation in their stance. Yet others may have embraced mediation but, it is argued, for cynical, disingenuous reasons. By reviewing existing empirical evidence on lawyers’ interactions with mediation and by examining historical and current trends in lawyers’ dalliance with mediation, this book seeks to shed new light on a number of related issues, including: lawyers’ resistance to mediation; lawyers’ motives for involvement with mediation; the appropriateness of lawyers acting as mediators and party representatives; and the impact that both lawyers and the increasing institutionalisation of mediation have had on the normative form of the process, as well as the impact that mediation experience heralds for lawyers and legal systems in general.

Dr Bryan Clark is a Professor in the Law School, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow and an Adjunct Professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. He is an academic lawyer and mediation scholar and holds a PhD from the University of Glasgow, an LLM from the University of Dundee and a BA from the Robert Gordon University. He has published widely in the fields of mediation and the role of lawyers and courts therein, civil dispute resolution and company law and delivered numerous academic and professional conference and seminar papers on these topics both at home and abroad. He is a member of the Academic Committee of the Civil Mediation Council for England and Wales and the Accreditation and Validation Panel for Relationships Scotland (family mediation and counselling service).