Presentation. the launch of the Canterbury Christ Church Mediation Clinic

The development of the Mediation Clinic project has been possible through a Higher Education Innovation Research in Teaching fund.

Ben Waters will outline the rationale for developing such a project. Despite the perceived resistance demonstrated by the private sector to use mediation for the resolution of civil disputes, since the millennium, particularly following the implementation of the Access to Justice Act 1999 and the introduction of the Civil Procedure Rules, there has been a growth in alternative methods of dispute resolution for civil claims and particularly the use of mediation. Court of Appeal decisions such as Dunnett v Railtrack, indicate that parties to a civil dispute should give serious thought to mediation as a method of resolving their dispute, not only for all the benefits that this process can provide, but also to avoid the risk of costs penalties which the court has power to order for failing to do so.

At an international mediation conference, which Ben Waters attended in 2007, Sir Brian Neill, himself a former Lord Justice of Appeal, delivered the keynote speech. Sir Brian described mediation as “An unstoppable force”. It is therefore argued here that there is a much to be said for these words and this presentation provides justification for the establishment of the first mediation clinic to be based in a UK University will be provided.