The importance of teaching dispute resolution in a twenty-first-century law school

Abstract

Civil justice reviews over the past 20 years have encouraged the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and particularly mediation. Mediation is arguably now becoming more mainstream in terms of dispute resolution process choice. In some instances law changes have been introduced requiring parties in dispute to consider using mediation; similarly, lawyers have an ethical responsibility to provide advice to their clients about the range of dispute resolution processes available. What is lacking however is a corresponding appreciation of the changing attitudes to the teaching of dispute resolution in the majority of UK Law Schools, where the promotion of adversarialism within the curriculum appears to remain the focus as the primary and only method of dispute resolution. The article argues that this is unreflective of current attitudes and thinking towards dispute resolution in most common law countries, where litigation is no longer necessarily the primary dispute resolution process of choice. Whilst there was token appreciation of the importance of mediation advocacy and its inclusion recommended within the Bar Practice Training Course (BPTC), the recent Legal Education Training Review was silent on any suggestions about the inclusion of dispute resolution based curriculum content at any stage of legal education in England and Wales. The article will explore the histo i al de elop e t of la e s attitudes to dispute esolutio ithi the i il justice arena and a ade i s tea hi g of curriculum associated with it in UK Law Schools. The article will pose questions on why recent legal history suggests that Law Schools should now perhaps take a more socio-legal approach to their curriculum content and embrace the teaching of dispute resolution as a defined subject area for the twenty-first century law school.

Justicia alternativa e identidades múltiples del abogado. Impacto de un currículo.

“…Aun con los matices que puede haber a lo largo del mundo, se reconoce la necesidad de fortalecer ciertos conocimientos durante la formación del abogado, no solo al incorporar la enseñanza de metodologías para aplicar la JA, sino también para fomentar la ética y los valores en este grupo de profesionales (Darian-Smith, 2016; Kelley y Kiršiene, 2015; Dagilyte y Coe, 2014; Waters, 2017), así como la moral (Nicolson, 2008); como si el carácter del abogado en tiempos globales no estuviera forjado en una predisposición a actuar con justicia y prudencia, virtudes necesarias para la gestión de los con ictos acorde a la Justicia Alternativa (Brubaker et al, 2014). Ya que la ética es intersubjetiva, puesto que la sociedad es quien brinda las pautas de lo que está bien o no, una sociedad Todas las implicaciones que conlleva la JA en el quehacer del abogado pueden generar diferentes apreciaciones emocionales.…”

“…Por ello, la identidad de estos profesionales presenta desafíos vinculados a cambios contextuales que se proclaman entre la dicotomía de una formación académica con la tradición histórica de origen medieval y su acercamiento a la moderna JA (Douglas, 2015;Dagilyte y Coe, 2014;Brubaker et al, 2014). Estas habilidades blandas consisten en sensibilizar a los estudiantes de derecho, por ejemplo, sobre las realidades del contexto regional y rural (Kennedy, Mundy y Nielsen, 2016), y llamarlos a adoptar un enfoque más socio-legal (Waters, 2017), incluyendo en la educación jurídica el manejo de las emociones (Heath, Galloway, Skead, Steel y Israel, 2017;Husenko et al, 2020).…”