The Costs Consequences of Refusing Mediation – Are the Courts Going Soft on Sanctions?

Introduction This month David Watkinson reflects on the case-law he has described previously in his blogs on this topic and notes that a reader could have drawn the conclusion that any proposal to mediate had better be complied with or costs consequences will follow. However, more recently, David finds the approach, particularly at High Court […]

Researching Mediation of Medical Treatment Disputes

Dr Jaime Lindsey, currently Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Essex (soon to be Associate Professor of Law at the University of Reading) is leading this research project to enable in-depth analysis of the use of mediation to resolve medical treatment disputes. Funded by an ESRC New Investigator Grant, the core aim of […]

The ‘BB3 Strategy’ Approach to a Mediated Negotiation

Author: Dr Mary Malecka A few years ago it cost me an arm and a leg to go to Boston and spend a week at Harvard law school for the program on negotiation course. Now, post-pandemic, everything is available online, and I recently had a day with William Ury and a small cohort of other […]

When Mediation Did = Dispute Resolution

In 1972 David Watkinson, while a pupil of Lord Anthony Gifford in Cloisters, met Stephen Sedley with whom Lord Anthony shared a room. Here, David considers the origin of dispute resolution and traces it back further than you may think.

Take it or leave it?

Claims for unpaid leave likely to have more takers after the decision of Smith v Pimlico Plumbers says Abigail Holt

Confidentiality/Mediation and the Courts……something lingering

Introduction David Watkinson considers recent developments concerning two issues on which he has previously blogged. First, the Court of Appeal’s decision in Berkeley Square holdings Ltd v Lancer Property Management Ltd and second, the ongoing debate about the value of mediation being made mandatory.

The Balance of Power – the right to a lawyer at mediation

Kate Aubrey-Johnson considers the recent case of L Kumar v LB of Hillingdon [2020] EWHC 3326 (Admin) and its implications for SEND mediation in which Mrs Justice Collins Rice said, ‘Local authorities have huge powers over the lives of families with children who have special needs, making decisions with potentially lifelong consequences. Where parents are […]

Mediation – the rational alternative

“To remain in conflict with another defies rational scrutiny; to continue in a commercial dispute resists economic analysis” (Strasser and Randolph). Abigail Holt considers the extent to which human beings are – as The Times journalist, Caitlin Moran has suggested – “a problem-solving species”. If you were a problem-solving human looking to devise a public system to solve […]