Program:

14.45 - 15.00: Registration / Zoom Connection

15.00 - 15.15: Masood Ahmed (University of Leicester)

Welcome Address and Introduction

15.15 – 15.35: Sue Prince (University of Exeter)

Building bridges and fences: Mapping routes to resolving disputes using technology

Recently, the Master of the Rolls outlined a vision for the future of civil justice whereby technology offers pre-action support for litigants with a focus on dispute resolution and continuous mediated interventions. In “The End of Lawyers?’ Richard Susskind used the analogy of a fence on the top of a cliff rather than an ambulance at the bottom, to demonstrate that we should be investing greater resources in “dispute containment’ and “dispute avoidance”: preventing people from ending up in difficult complex disputes in courts. Ideas emerging for future developments envisage more bridges and fences to help and guide litigants and to assist people to navigate through the justice system prior to making a claim. There are also examples of smaller-scale projects in other jurisdictions which similarly revolutionise the relationship between disputant and the justice process with the aim of achieving settlement prior to trial. This presentation considers how pandemic-driven backlogs can drive these sorts of changes and considers how we divert litigants away from potentially expensive litigation by increasing access to an integrated online dispute resolution system earlier in the process.

15.35 - 15.55: Nicolas Kyriakides (University of Nicosia)

Affordability of ADR in Cyprus in light of new Civil Procedure Rules

In September 2023 Cyprus will have a brand new set of Civil Procedure Rules. Drafted by a committee under Lord Dyson, they are almost entirely based on the English CPR. The overriding objective will now be the guiding light for the civil courts in Cyprus, which will not only have to ensure that cases are dealt with justly and at proportionate cost, but will have a duty to encourage parties to engage in ADR. Arbitration and mediation in Cyprus have started gaining popularity in recent years and it is argued that they will be even more common after the introduction of the new CPR. But are they more affordable compared to litigation? The presentation will address their affordability compared to their counterparts in the English and German systems, the leading jurisdictions of common and civil law systems in Europe respectively.

15.55 – 16.10: Break

16.10 - 16.30: Dorcas Quek Anderson (Singapore Management University)

Counting the Cost of Enlarging the Role of ADR in Funding Civil Justice

Access to civil justice in many countries has been plagued by the common challenges of the high cost of litigation and limited judicial resources. Singapore, a common law jurisdiction, implementing radical changes to its civil procedure regime in April this year in order to ensure affordability and timeliness of the civil justice process. The proposed reforms include the imposition of a duty on a party to consider amicable resolution of the dispute before commencing and during legal proceedings, and empowering the court to order the parties to use Amicable Dispute Resolution (ADR). This presentation discusses the implications of increasing the justice’s system’s emphasis on the use of ADR, with reference to Singapore’s ongoing civil justice reforms and comparable reforms in the UK. It demonstrates how the historical inclusion of ADR in the justice system has shaped the concept of access to justice, resulting in the emphasis on not only cost-effective justice, but also on appropriately tailoring the characteristics of each case to the dispute resolution process. An excessive association of mediation with cost savings neglects other significant dimensions of access to justice. The presentation also analyses the likely cost implications of expanding the use of ADR, arguing that the question of whether ADR is an appropriate process for each dispute assumes greater complexity as both the parties and the courts have to engage in detailed cost-benefit analyses to determine whether any refusal to attempt ADR or order to use ADR is justified. Costs concerns also have to be delicately balanced with other factors relevant to determining the appropriate dispute resolution process.

16.30 - 17.00: Discussion & Conclusion of the Seminar

The Speakers:

Sue Prince is the Head of the Law School at the University of Exeter. Her research interests focus on access to justice in the civil courts looking particularly at the role of court-based mediation. She has conducted a number of empirical studies of the impact of mediation in the courts for bodies such as the Civil Justice Council and the Ministry of Justice . Sue has published on the topic of mandatory mediation in Canada and has researched and published on mandatory projects in Florida and also New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She was a member of the Civil Justice Council Advisory Group on ODR led by Professor Richard Susskind, set up to explore the role that Online Dispute Resolution can play in resolving civil disputes in the courts, the initial report was published in February 2015 and has had huge impact on the development of the online courts in England and Wales. Sue was a member of the JUSTICE group on Preventing Digital Exclusion which published its Report in 2018 and has written a recent paper on the role of ODR in court processes for the International Journal of Law in Context.

Nicolas Kyriakides is a lawyer, academic and lobbyist. He is a graduate of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, he holds postgraduate degrees from UCL and NYU and a PhD (DPhil) from the University of Oxford. He has also been a visiting researcher at Harvard University. He teaches Civil Procedure at the University of Nicosia and has contributed to a number of high level innovative legal research initiatives and papers in the course of both his commercial practice and his academic life, such as the Procedural Law Unit at the University of Nicosia. He is also a founding member of the non-profit organisation Oxygono.

Dorcas Quek Anderson is Associate Dean (Student, Staff & Alumni Affairs) and an Assistant Professor of Law in the Singapore Management University’s Yong Pung How School of Law. As a practising mediator and a former District Judge in the State Courts, Dorcas' research is drawn from her experience and explores the interaction between dispute resolution developments and access to justice. Her research has been published in leading international journals including the Civil Justice Quarterly and the Harvard Negotiation Law Review. Dorcas has been accredited by the International Mediation Institute, Singapore International Mediation Institute, the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution and the Singapore Mediation Centre. She is a mediator with Singapore International Mediation Centre, Singapore Mediation Centre, and the Global Mediation Panel at the Office of the Ombudsman for UN Funds and Programmes. Dorcas has conducted negotiation and mediation training in SMU, Attorney-General’s Chambers, Singapore Mediation Centre and Singapore International Mediation Centre.