Embrace Mediation as Means of Settling Conflicts, Nigerians Urged

A Lagos High Court Judge, Justice Atinuke Oluyemi, has urged Nigerians to embrace mediation as an alternative means of settling conflicts, as against running to court.

Justice Oluyemi gave this advice last week, at a conference on mediation advocacy organised by the Standing Conference of Mediation Advocates (SCMA) in conjunction with Lagos Practitioners and Mediation Advocates (FOTEFA Partners).

The theme of the Conference which was held at Lagos High Court, Igbosere, was “Business and Practice of Mediation Advocacy”.

The Judge said mediation is an alternative dispute resolution mechanism, which should be readily embraced as an alternative to litigation.

“Mediation should be embraced as a means of conflict resolution, as against running to court.

"Mediation is a win-win thing. Rather than going to court and prolonging issues for months and years, these issues can rather be sorted out in a round table, where issues are amicably sorted out in a few hours or at most, few days. It saves time and most essentially reduces cost implications”, she said.

Mr. Yemi Akinsanya, in his speech, said mediators have no power to decide the dispute, but have wide powers to control the process of the bargaining.

“The mediator’s greatest single power, lies in him being neutral and unbiased, which is something that should be so often used.

“More to this, there are several critical issues in mediation advocacy which vary from, building or creating an ADR, to billing one’s clients, down to ethical issues in mediation, among others”, he explained.

Akinsanya also revealed that, building an ADR practice or culture would drive successful settlement on both ends, create a sense of achievement on the part of the mediator, and inadvertently, lead to more business.

He added that, mediation would end disputes in less time, with less money, under satisfactory terms.

“All the more reason why mediation advocacy should be embraced, taught and practiced”, he noted.

For Mr. Ayodele Akintunde, SAN, mediation advocacy is the technique of presenting and arguing a client’s position, needs and interests in a non-adversarial way.

According to him “in this context, we are talking about combining mediation advocacy with other ADR mechanisms and other areas of practice of the law firm, to increase the revenues.

“More so, mediation advocacy does not operate in a vacuum; before one can talk of the viability of integrating mediation advocacy as a profit centre in a law firm structure, the law firm must be well structured and must, develop an internal structure, develop policies and an ADR culture, get suitable Lawyers in the firm, invest in trainings among others”, he added.

During the panel discussion, which consisted of Justice Atinuke Oluyemi, High Court, Lagos division, Valentiono Buoro, SCMA (UK) Convener SCMA, Nigeria, Adeyemi Akinsanya SCAMS, CEDR Accredited Mediators (UK), the discussants noted that employing one or more forms of ADR as a means of dispute resolution, is essential, because, often times, clients want a resolution, not war.

They added that legal needs are changing dramatically; inhouse counsels are looking for cost effective alternative ways of resolving their disputes, and also smaller bills, not larger ones.