Approval of the performance of mediators among lawyers is fairly high, with about 80% of them getting a nod of approval in a bi-annual survey – or Mediation Audit – from CEDR (see News). Which means that around one in five of them didn’t perform up to lawyers’ expectations, for which of course there could be many reasons, such as the mediation didn’t go quite the way the lawyer hoped.
Mediators themselves are reported to be happy with the performance of most lawyers, although not all, with over 40% complaining about poor negotiating strategies and over reliance by clients on their advisers.
Some mediators have good reason to be very happy with the entire mediation process – one of them is reported as having earned £780,000 in fees. He, or she, must have been busy as this was achieved in a period when the average fee for the more experienced mediator is reported to have fallen by almost 20% due to more mediators gaining the experience needed to join this elite group and diluting the average. We can expect some more well qualified entrants once news of the potential £780,000 earnings gets around.
Incomes from mediation are also robust for others, despite the fall for the experienced mediators. Those undertaking between 20 and 30 mediations a year still earn an average of £68,000 for their efforts. Upping the effort to between 30 and 50 mediations a year brings in an average of £175,000 and those with over 50 a year earn £330,000 on average.
Satisfaction with mediation is high regardless of how much individual mediators might earn. The survey reports an aggregate settlement rate of 89%, compared to 86% at the last survey two years ago. Some 74% achieve settlement on the day of the mediation, with 15% settling shortly after.
The key finding of the survey, says CEDR, is that 12,000 commercial mediations were performed in a year, which is a rise of 20% since the last survey in 2016. Mediators and service providers earned £30 million in those 12 months, but saved businesses £3 billion in ‘wasted management time, damaged relation ships, lost productivity and legal fees’.
A new question in this year’s survey asked whether respondents were concerned at current levels of diversity among mediators. The survey reveals a striking lack of diversity among mediators, with only 35% of respondents being women, unchanged on the last survey. In the more experienced group the proportion of women was only 24%, down from 29% two years ago. Only 10% of respondents were from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups.
Some 39% said they had not even considered the issue, which is a bit worrying, but 35% said they were satisfied, which is a bit more worrying. The not satisfied group accounted for 26%. Obviously a bit of an education job needs to be done on why diversity is a good and necessary thing that should be considered by everyone.
It is good to see alternative dispute resolution techniques like mediation making such good progress in helping dispute prone industries like construction reach commercially acceptable settlements speedily and at reasonable cost. It will also be good to see more enlightened responses to the diversity question at the next audit in two years. CL
Nick Barrett
Editor