Scottish university on course to deliver masters in mediation

THE first masters course in mediation and conflict management at a Scottish university has been launched at Strathclyde. Course leader Dr Bryan Clark said the idea had been four or five years in gestation, with the first students starting in a few weeks.

“Mediation is developing, becoming more professionalised, and Charlie Irvine [chair of the Scottish Mediation Network, who will run part of the course] had the idea,” Dr Clark said.

Nine students last year started on a postgraduate certificate, a precursor to the full MSc. “We had a mixture – a couple of lawyers and a law graduate, mediators from other professions. We will have a similar mix this year.”

The course will combine theory and “a significant element” of practice. But what does Clark hope to pass on to students? What makes a really good mediator? “It’s about having authority, but using it properly and being able to command the respect of the parties. It’s about being impartial, even-handed and sensitive, being a good communicator and an active listener – and about being creative. It’s about avoiding the traditional legal paradigm and about always learning and reflecting.”

So how embedded is mediation in Scottish business and public life? “The development is steady rather than spectacular,” said Clark. “It is strong in areas like employment and family, but commercial mediation is still relatively slow, though things are moving forward.”

He praises private sector firms such as Core and Catalyst. “Core is the best established and gets most of the high-level commercial work. It has done significant work promoting the process, but my sense is that the impact of mediation on the commercial world is still quite low.”

The first hurdle is the trickiest, Clark believes: “Getting people to mediate the first time can be incredibly difficult. Once they have done it, people appreciate it, see the benefits and want to do it again.”

Clark says mediation is better established in countries such as the United States, New Zealand and Australia, and that England and Wales are ahead of Scotland as mediation has been promoted by the courts. “The Woolf reforms of 1999 made it harder for parties to refuse to mediate in the English courts. In Scotland, courts can be lukewarm, sometimes hostile, to mediation – due to a mixture of ignorance, conservatism and vested interest.”

So how can mediation be embedded in Scottish life?

“The government has made positive noises but promotion would help, and certainly more enthusiasm from the courts – and perhaps some pilot schemes,” says Clark.

“We need to educate lawyers to a far greater extent about the benefits of mediation – and it is very important to get to more business clients.”

Clark says we should not get ‘obsessed’ about lawyers being the gatekeepers to mediation, and there needs to be a harder sell to business, perhaps through professional bodies. There is still, to an extent, a mindset that mediation is limited, he added – but it absolutely does have a place in the hard world of business.

“Mediation really does add value. Almost all cases settle and there is a much better prospect of maintaining relationships if the parties are directly involved. In traditional litigation, parties communicate through lawyers who decide what information to pass on to a client – this leads to misinformation and misconception, and is not a very efficient way of solving problems. In mediation, parties come together, share information and might realise they have a number of similar beliefs about a dispute.

“However, we do not often hear about mediation success stories because of client confidentiality.”

What does Clark want the course to achieve? “I hope there will be some kind of trickle-down effect. I want the skills we pass on to be used, even if not in formal mediation – just in the way they do business.”

Pamela Lyall, director of mediation services at Core, welcomed the initiative. “For those who do not wish more practical intensive skills training, this more academic approach will be a different type of learning. Core has trained hundreds of businesspeople, senior managers and professionals in mediation skills over recent years. The uptake of mediation in the commercial world is increasing greatly.”

Ms Lyall said Core has worked with more than 150 different law firms, many on multiple occasions, and more than 500 solicitors across Scotland now have experience of mediation. “This signals a sea-change in dispute resolution in the past decade – and in the development of problem-solving skills by lawyers who see mediation as a way to help clients to solve problems more quickly, cheaply and effectively,” she added. “This new course reflects this interest.”