The legal establishment now feels that mediation is an established part of the dispute resolution system, but that
education and training in its use is not sufficiently developed to mean that all those involved find it easy to
set up, prepare and conduct themselves at mediation. Mediation in the commercial field, which this Report covers,
first arrived on the shores from the USA in the late eighties. It went through a period in the nineties where a few keen exponents mediated but Lord Woolf, in his reforms of the Civil Justice System, placed ADR on the map. Over the last ten years a series of legal decisions have endorsed its importance, to the extent that it is now a regular, if not very common, dispute resolution process. Large numbers of professionals still do not find it easy to take part. For example, there is a lot of uncertainty as to which mediator to use. This Report covers this and much more to help companies through the mediation process.
