Report of the 40 Hour Integrated Certificate Course in Mediation organized by Indian Law
Institute, MAADHYAM-COUNCIL FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND SAARCLAW - INDIA
CHAPTER
INDIAN LAW INSTITUTE
22nd to 24th NOVEMBER 2019 and 06th to 08th December 2019

Attended by: Mr. Victor Nayak, Assistant Professor, SoL, Galgotias University

About the Course

The course aimed to enable the participants to acquire comprehensive understanding of the concepts of the mediation techniques which need to be used keeping in view of requirements of Section 89 of CPC and other statutory enactments requiring use of mediation as an effective tool of dispute resolution.

The basic purpose of the course was:

• Clarifying the basic concepts of negotiation and communication required for conducting and participating in a mediation process.
• Elaborating the mechanism whereby the parties can assess strengths and weakness of their cases.
• Teaching a systematic framework for understanding the concept of mediation.
• Explaining the role of mediator, role of the parties and role of lawyers in mediation.

The sessions were undertaken by Mr. J P Sengh, Ms. Sadhana Ramachandran, Ms. Veena Ralli and Mr. Sudhanshu Batra. The trainers are senior advocates of Supreme Court and are considered as one of the best mediators in Asian region as they have vast years of experience and expertise in mediation. The valedictory session was chaired by Justice Gita Mittal, sitting CJ of J& K High court and even she emphasized on the use of mediation in dispute resolution process in India.

About the sessions

The course was divided into two parts considering that the working professionals were part of the course and that everyday there used to be four sessions and these sessions were in relation to various topics that are a key and integral part of learning mediation. Some of the topics that were covered in the course are as follows:

• Understanding conflict in the context of mediation
• Different modes of dispute resolution adversarial/ non-adversarial
• Arbitration role play
• Negotiation as the first step of mediation
• Bargaining the substrata of mediation
• Communication in mediation
• Philosophy of Mediation
• Process and Stages of Mediation
• Mediation in commercial and pre-litigation matters
• Roles of mediation
• Impasse in mediation
• Stages of mediation and 6-Hat thinking
• Ethics and confidentiality
• Setllement Report writing techniques

All the above sessions were accompanied by role play and debriefing sessions so as to give us the hands on experience and training in mediation and the facets related to it.

Outcome of the course

The course has helped me to not only understand the features of mediation but has equipped me with the skills to do mediation in an effective manner and also impart training subsequently to people for furthering the concept of mediation in the legal dispute resolution techniques. As the course was attended by people who are experts in not only legal but also from management or engineering background, it clarifies one aspect that mediation can be done by a mediator who need to be a human being with certain traits that will result in an effective mediation outcome. As I was entrusted to teach ADR in this semester which includes mediation, the students were given mediation role play as a part of their internal component so that they can understand how mediation works. After the completion of this course I believe that I will be better able to teach them the role play and the simulation process with the skills that I have learnt while undergoing this course. In turn this will help our law students to have an added advantage of knowing mediation which is now very much like a pre-requisite nowadays for any lawyers in order to do an effective mediation. Also, this course has equipped me with the know-how of mediation which will help me to organize national client counselling and mediation competition that will benefit the students and the University alike.