NCJ Number
108158
Date Published
1987
Length
302 pages
Annotation
Written primarily for law students, this book addresses critical legal, ethical, and policy issues that have arisen with the growth in the use of mediation in the United States during the last two decades.
Abstract
It focuses on the types of disputes normally handled by the justice system and the issues of greatest concern to lawyers. The information is also intended for use by practitioners, mediation program managers, and teachers. An overview and definition of mediation is followed by a summary of the mediation process and techniques used by mediators. Further chapters discuss strategic considerations for a lawyer in advising a client whether to use mediation and an analysis and discussion of legal, ethical, and policy issues. Specific issues addressed include confidentiality, practice-of-law constraints on the mediator, the tension between the duty to be neutral and the duty to be fair, the enforcement of agreements, mediator liability, and mediation of disputes involving allegations of crime. The book concludes with an examination of issues raised by the use of coercion in mediation. Footnotes, case examples, table of cases, table of statutes and standards, table of authorities, index, and appendixes (other forms of dispute resolution, American Bar Association standards for lawyer mediators in family disputes, and ethical standards of professional responsibility for the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution). For the instructor's manual, see NCJ-108159.