The Department for Constitutional Affairs and Courts Service christened the seven days beginning 24 October as National Mediation Awareness Week.

Too many lawyers still do not appreciate that using a mediator to resolve disputes may be just what the client needs, and yet all too often it is the formal process that runs away with itself, making costs a far more significant item than they need be. We become more self-serving than to serve.



Following the logic of the pre-issue protocols, we should all be far more in tune with exchanging the respective arguments and attempting to seek a resolution of the problem before proceedings are issued.


There is always a best time to mediate just as there is a best time to negotiate, once you have understood each other's arguments and looked at each other's documents, or at least the important ones. So mediation is not the panacea to resolving all disputes, but it does help unlock the dialogue box.


Many of us should appreciate far more than we do that clients generally want their disputes resolved - and how that is achieved is secondary. The debate between a lawyer's duty to his client and the duty to do well for the practice for which he is working usefully highlights this conflict, in that we are primarily disputes resolvers and not litigators - we should perhaps chose a little more of the ploughshare and a little less of the sword.


Anthony Glaister, Keeble Hawson, Leeds