What if you could tell the legal system and its professionals what you want and need to manage conflict – in your business, in your community, or in your life? In 2016 you have an opportunity to do just that.
Modern mediation began after the Roscoe Pound Conference in St Paul, Minnesota in 1976, a historic gathering to discuss ways to address then-current dissatisfaction with the American legal system and to reform the administration and delivery of justice.
Forty years later, in 2016 we are all invited to join a much expanded world-wide, 15-month-long conversation being convened by the International Mediation Institute.
The first Global Pound Conference event was held in Singapore on March 17-18, 2016. Singapore Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon opened the whole conference series by outlining the shift to “appropriate” dispute resolution from “alternative” dispute resolution; secondly, greater international collaboration between courts and governments and through this the development of countries’ best practices whether common law or civil law; and thirdly, recognition of the need for international delivery of legal services.
The last stop on the tour is July 6, 2017 in London, U.K. The only Canadian event is Saturday, October 15, 2016 in Toronto, in conjunction with the annual conference of the ADR Institute of Canada.
Core questions will be posed at all of the events with the goal of collecting information to develop future initiatives. The participants/ stakeholders are categorized and comparisons are made in the responses between the categories. The stakeholder categories are Party/User, Advisor (lawyer, consultant), Adjudicative Provider (arbitrator, judge), Non-Adjudicative Provider (mediator, conciliator), and Influencer (educator, researcher, government).
The data is already identifying thought-provoking comparisons.
For example, at the Singapore event, in response to a core question about what is the greatest influence on parties when deciding which type of dispute resolution process to use, Advisors ranked legal advice top. Users, as well as both Adjudicative and Non-Adjudicative providers all ranked efficiency first and then legal advice much lower.
Another interesting contrast between the stakeholder groups was that Advisors were the only stakeholder category to rank purely adjudicative dispute resolution processes highly.
All stakeholder groups in Singapore ranked the combination of adjudicative and non-adjudicative processes (such as arbitration or litigation with mediation or conciliation) as the most effective dispute resolution process, despite the fact that this combination is much less available in practice. All stakeholders were in agreement that combining adjudicative and non-adjudicative processes should be prioritized in order to improve the future of dispute resolution.
Join the conversation. For full information check out the Global Pound Conference.