More than half of small claims referred to mediation are settling and most people exposed to it consider it a positive process that they will use again, research from Exeter County Court has shown.

The study - carried out by Exeter University’s Sue Prince for the Civil Justice Council - monitored small claims mediating through Exeter County Court’s free mediation scheme between December 2003 and February 2004.


The research found that 58% of cases settled, and 90% of users said they found using mediation a ‘positive experience’ that they would be prepared to repeat.


Cases at the lower end of the small-claims scale - the upper limit is £5,000 - were more likely to settle, while those involving complex emotional or family relationships were least likely to mediate successfully. The report said that 318 hours of judicial time was saved by the mediation scheme.


Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Master of the Rolls and chairman of the Civil Justice Council, said: ‘This report confirms that these schemes represent the way forward in reducing the number of disputes which are resolved by resort to the courts, and it makes clear that alternative dispute resolution should have a prominent place in the civil litigation landscape.’


Fraser Whitehead, a partner with London firm Russell Jones & Walker and a member of the Law Society’s civil litigation committee, backed mediation but warned against its compulsory introduction. ‘There is a difference between mediation that represents value for clients on the one hand, and on the other forces people into a formal process that is expensive,’ he said.