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Mediation Training - Course Structure

ADR & Mediation Skills

Our Alternative Dispute Resolution course equips members with the skills to;

• Become an accredited mediator
• Successfully resolve commercial, industrial and legal disputes without the need to resort to the Courts
• Positively handle a wide variety of "difficult situations" in all areas of commercial, industrial and legal disputes
• Quickly ‘read’ emotions and accurately assess the aims of other parties, whether individuals or organisations
• Work in a strictly time-limited environment, as operated for example in the Court-annexed mediation schemes, and to understand the different techniques required in these as distinguished from mediations without strict time limits
• Prevent disputes running out of control and overcome the frequent impasse in negotiations
• Recognise the onset of deadlock and how to avoid it
• Break the deadlock and reach a settlement
• Improve employer/employee relations and develop a beneficial climate in the work-place
• Develop more effective decision-making and ‘solution-finding’ by identifying value systems, behavioural patterns and vulnerabilities

Course Assessment

Assessment is on a continual basis, with a final assessment in the last 2 sessions (the final day). The criteria for assessment are set out in the Mediation Assessment Guidance Notes issued to each participant at the start of the course.

At the conclusion of the course, participants are given the task of completing and returning a self assessment, together with drafting a Heads of Agreement document, prior to the School’s final assessment of their competence and effectiveness as mediators.

Anyone upon final assessment considered not to have reached the SPCP's required standard of competence are offered the opportunity of attending a one-day refresher course at the conclusion of which they will be re-assessed.

Mediation Course Syllabus

The nature of the course and the methodologies used require each course to be limited to a maximum of 16 or 20 participants. This maintains an intimate and appropriate environment for the course and ensures maximum benefit is derived by each student. The course teaches participants how to communicate effectively in both a professional and a personal environment, an ability which may be used far beyond the narrow realm of mediation. Ethical considerations are emphasised so as to prevent abuses of the skills acquired.

The courses are generally divided into 8 sessions over 4 full days. Each of the first 4 sessions is in turn divided into 3 parts:

1. Lecture
2. Training Skills with exercises and demonstrations
3. Mediation Role play under supervision.

Each of the second 4 sessions (the second two days) concentrates upon mock mediations, with ample periods of feedback and discussion within each session.

The secret of the course's success is its emphasis on the experiential: the students participate in a total of 16 mock mediations, each lasting on average 1 hour, with the 4 mediations on the last day taking approximately 1½ hours. Each participant on the course generally acts as the Mediator in no less than 4 cases, and role-plays one of the parties to the dispute in the remaining 12 mediations. Many of the case-studies are based upon classic "chestnut" legal cases, with a number of added case-studies to illustrate a wider variety of conflict situations.

The school is also able to provide mediation courses especially tailored to particular sectors. In conjunction with University College London and the London Shipping Law Centre, the School has provided a course specifically for shipping lawyers.