Mediation Law: Journey through Institutionalism to Juridification

In England mediation became a key part of the civil justice reform agenda after the Woolf Reforms of 1996 as disputants are deflected from litigation towards settlement outside the court system. The Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) give courts the power either to ‘encourage’ mediation through judicial case management or use more ‘coercive’ measures by using costs to penalise parties who act unreasonably by refusing to use ADR or mediation. This book explores how mediation law shapes and ‘influences’ the practise of mediation in the English jurisdiction. It provides a comprehensive examination of the legal framework for mediation in the English and Welsh jurisdiction, exploring the historical jurisprudence of ADR and mediation in England in order to analyse the extent to which the institutionalisation of mediation by the state and courts has led to the monopolisation and ‘juridification’ of mediation by lawyers. The book also includes a comparative legal methodology on the framework underpinning mediation practise in other common law jurisdictions including the United States, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong in order to explicate shared or distinctive approaches to mediation.