Civil Justice 2007 – 2013

Lawyers in ADR: Successful Mediation Advocacy in Representing Clients

Background:

Mediation is becoming a fact of life in the legal profession and in the future lawyers will be confronted more often with the question: 'Will I be using mediation in this case or not?' As a result, lawyers, notaries and in-house counsel have to be very well prepared. However, in some EU countries mediation is further developed than in others. This makes dealing with cross border mediations especially complex. There are many court-connected mediation programs and in some jurisdictions mediation is statutory. The EU recently adopted a Directive to facilitate the use of cross border mediation. In September 2007 as part of the EU sponsored MEDA project - Promotion of International Commercial Arbitration and Other ADR Techniques in MEDA Countries (www.adrmeda.org) - the Rome Declaration was signed by representatives of several Bar Associations. The Declaration is aimed to stimulate lawyers in actively using and promoting mediation and is intended to be adopted by the signers: The Council of the Bars and Law Societies of Europe, the Arab Lawyers Union, the Union of the Turkish Bars as well as the CCBE

Despite the formal support for the use of mediation within the legal profession, lawyers seem to encounter many impediments to actively using mediation. One of the great barriers is the lack of awareness, and especially the knowledge, in how to professionally represent a client in a mediation. Indeed, mediation is hardly taught in law schools throughout the EU. Mediation may become mainstream in civil and commercial dispute processing within the EU, and beyond, only if awareness is enhanced and if new skills are taught to the legal profession at large. There are a significant number of trained mediators in the EU. This project is focusing on the need to train lawyers in how to be advocates in a mediation. Therefore specific awareness raising programs, combined with practical material and training in mediation advocacy skills are necessary.

Objectives:

This project aims to professionalize and facilitate the use of mediation in the EU by teaching lawyers specific skills (“know-how”) on how to represent a client in mediation.

Specific objectives:

Taking away impediments for lawyers to actively promote and use mediation (especially, lack of know-how and tools).
Creating awareness and proficiency in representing clients in mediation, especially by teaching the specific factors for success and failure that are different in representing a client in mediation than in representing a client in court proceedings.
Create European standards for mediation advocacy, interaction and know-how sharing, especially for cross border cases.
Facilitate European cooperation of lawyers from several EU countries in the field of ADR (one of the factors for success in mediation).
Stimulate the use of mediation, especially in cross border cases, so that lawyers will become active proponents of effective dispute resolution (choosing for each case the best method to resolve this dispute between these parties).

Key activities :

Implementing specific training planned for each Member State (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak, Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kindom). Thus, there will be 26 trainings, approximately 2-3 days each The training topics will vary depending on the level of sophistication and understanding of mediation in each of the individual Member States. There are four categories of trainings. Each individual training may be composed of all four topics or some combination of any of the four. The topics taught will be decided once there is an assessment of each individual countries’ needs.
Implementing awareness raising meetings
Producing a book on how to use mediation advocacy in Europe in English and possibly translated into German, French, or other languages if requested.

Making a special website in which all materials like the checklists, articles, video clips, rules and regulations and other useful material can be downloaded