With stunning clairvoyance, the CMC named this year’s conference: “Mediating in Uncertain Times”!

The Pre-Conference Dinner

It was entirely in keeping that the pre-Conference dinner was held in a restaurant named The Bank, situated on the edge of a canal. Mediators are trained to expect the unexpected, and it was a pleasant surprise to discover that a Bank teetering on the brink can provide such convivial ambience and serve up palatable nourishment! A thoroughly pleasant evening was nicely rounded off with amusing tales of the unexpected from Anthony Sendall, who regaled the well-attended gathering with his mediation experiences involving “bare breasts, urine, meat cleavers, guns, ham as a weapon of choice, noisy sex, and witchcraft”.

Defining the Role for Mediation in the Justice System

Dr Sue Prince, Associate Professor from Exeter University opened the Conference’s substantive proceedings, outlining mediation’s ‘carrot and stick’ role in the justice system. (Was it the carrot at the end of the tunnel, supposedly seen by David Beckham?) Her extensive experience over many years and several continents was well demonstrated. Some aptly-noted statistics revealed yet again the lack of awareness about mediation. (Surely there cannot be anyone out there who still is not aware of mediation?) The conundrum was expertly answered by Sue when she described mandatory mediation in Ontario: the pleasure of seeing everyone so well acquainted and fully knowledgeable of every aspect of the process.

Implementing Mediation Schemes

Introducing mediation schemes to replace well-oiled grievance procedures into Local Government and the NHS might seem a daunting task. Yet Catherine Anderson and Karl Cockerill described how, with passion and resolve, they succeeded in the London Borough of Newham and East Lancashire Hospital Trust respectively. Karl’s description of the dispute over a fire door – “It’s not about the door” – was a great example of how workplace disputes were about relationships rather than substance.

Crisis Bites

The Parallel Skills Workshops generated the now customary dilemma for conference delegates: which workshop can I afford to miss? The least miss-able – and most popular – seemed to be ‘Crisis Bites’. Was this because it offered delegates a platform from which to boast about their amazing mediations? “I had a mediation last week where…” was the most common refrain. Yet the cumulative expertise of the eminent array of speakers, Colin Manning, David Richbell, Mark Mattison and Jane Player put the experience of the delegates in the shade. Some of the common crises and challenges faced by mediators were opened up to the audience: are joint sessions so productive as to justify the mediator frog-marching the parties kicking and screaming to the joint table? Did parties really want an evaluative mediator? (Not at all, I would suggest, if they for one moment thought the evaluation would go against them). How do you slap down a bully-boy with empathy and kind understanding – or is it preferable to be a schoolmaster wielding a cane? These issues stimulated lively discussion, and were skilfully explained by the panel.

Elder Mediation

Some might have expected Elder Mediation to be about rebellious teenagers and their fuddy-duddy elders. Not so. Craig Ward gave an illuminating account of the knowledge, skills and practices required for mediations involving vulnerable or disabled adults and their carers. “Are you a psychologist?” asked one pertinent questioner. “No”, said Craig. He has a BA (Hons) in psychology, and it seemed clear that he had benefitted greatly from it.

Family Business Mediation

Perhaps this was about uncontrollable youngsters and their reactionary parents? Well no, more about sibling rivalry and squabbles with in-laws. So it was fascinating to learn from Ian Marsh that there is an entire profession involved in dealing with family business disputes. With parties numbering from 5 to anything up to 80 (a Saudi family of 19 children and 59 grandchildren), and with mediations conducted over many days and weeks, Ian provided us with a fascinating eye-opener, far removed from the normal experiences of the majority of the audience.

Costs in Mediation

Could there be anything more dry and boring than mediating over Costs? Far from it, it seems. This workshop, thought-provokingly presented by Deborah Burke, was said to be lively and stimulating. Deborah pointed to the divergent perceptions of clients and their lawyers, as to whether or not the legal fees were “value for money” – 30% of lawyers thought “yes” and only 8% of their clients agreed! And how could anyone run up pre-action costs of £525,437? Apparently, Cliff Richard did in his litigation with the BBC over reports naming him as a suspected sex offender. This was just one of Deborah’s instructive examples in her well-received workshop.

Securing your online presence

Those of us dinosaur-like technophobes might have feared that Charles Sowden’s talk would be yet another jargon-filled put-down, by some geek reprimanding us for all the things we should be doing on social media which we are not doing, and which kids a quarter of our age are doing all the time, and which are sooo simple to do, and why aren’t we doing it. Some of us have OD’d on ODR, and believe ‘online platforms’ are the yellow lines on the Underground – and where the announcement “Mind the Gap” refers to the cavernous void in our knowledge of social media. Thankfully, the only jargon mentioned in Charles’s excellent presentation was SEO (no, not Senior Executive Officer, but Search Engine Optimisation). Charles navigated us expertly through the often bewildering array of options before us, with some helpful practical tips on what we should do the moment we got home.

Legal Update

Stephen Ruttle was the 11th hour “Popinjay” – a most admirable substitute for Bill Wood, who was obliged to pull out at the last minute. Instead of a legal update, we were delightfully entertained by Stephen’s account of his journey from a mercenary to a major to a midwife – all metaphorically speaking, of course. Dealing with “difficult conversations”, he left us with a difficult-to-forget picture from a video clip “Its Not About The Nail”, as well as a haunting image of 50 church people locked in a room for 3 days to talk about God and Sex.

Sir Alan Ward

The day would not have been complete without Sir Alan’s inimitable concluding remarks. He thanked Amanda Bucklow and Colin Manning, and most importantly “Miss Bossy Boots” Melanie Vasilescu, all of them the collective sine quibus non of the entire event, for their tireless, generous and unstinting contributions. Finally, with his matchless political correctness, Sir Alan made the de rigueur reference to LGPT – let’s get pissed tonight!

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