Mediation perspectives from the Bench, Bar And Mediation Table in a Magistrates Court — Finding Common Ground and Bridging Gaps

Abstract

Debates, dichotomies, and distinctions exist within the literature and amongst ADR practitioners, regarding mediation’s varying purposes, diversity in practices and variety of procedures. This research explores these three themes, using the Magistrates Court of South Australia (‘the Court’) as a case study. There are four principal actors who are involved, either directly or indirectly, in mediation within the Court: magistrates, lawyers, mediators and disputants. I refer to three of the four principal actors – magistrates, lawyers and mediators – collectively as ‘Stakeholders’. I examine data from semi-structured interviews with five magistrates, seven lawyers and 16 mediators regarding their understandings, expectations, and experiences of mediation’s purpose, practice and procedure. The research identifies the main areas of convergence and divergence between Stakeholders and shows that expectation gaps exist between them regarding the three themes. I examine prominent expectation gaps and make recommendations to address them.