PILOT: masters and district judges vital in moving cases to mediation, says Lord Neuberger


District judges and masters at London's commercial courts should be given the chance to force parties to mediate before they are allowed to come to court to see if the idea would work, a law lord has said.



Speaking at the first anniversary of the Mayor's and City of London Court's mediation pilot, Lord Neuberger, who was promoted from the Court of Appeal in January this year, said he thought a mediation scheme giving 'the right of a district judge to order mediation seems to me something worth considering'. He said masters and district judges were vital in moving cases to mediation.



Commercial litigation should benefit from such a move, according to Seamus Smyth, head of litigation at City firm Carter Lemon Camerons. 'Broadly, I'm in favour of vesting in district judges and masters the power to impose mediation, because of the potential benefits.' Mediation produces surprising successes that might not happen without some encouragement, Mr Smyth said, but he added that there should be no adverse consequences if the mediation fails.



Compulsion will not be a wholly popular move, however. Richard Stephens, mediator and legal consultant, said mediation is 'good and valuable' but it should not be used to save an ailing system. 'I'm not sure litigants would like to be told that they must use mediation because the court system is creaking at the seams,' he said.



Though the Mayor's and City of London Court's voluntary mediation pilot has been hailed because of a quoted 82% success rate, this achievement is being judged on only 17 cases mediated over the course of a year.



Jeremy Ferguson, chairman of the mediation committee at Devon and Exeter Law Society, which also runs a small claims mediation pilot, said some reports have found that success rates drop when an element of compulsion is introduced. 'That doesn't invalidate a pilot,' he said.



Rupert White