Abstract
This article derives from doctoral research into the mediation process, providing an empirically based ethnomethodological analysis of mediation through the disparate understandings, currents of perception, needs and objectives of lay and legal actors (plaintiffs, defendants, lawyers on all sides, mediators). In particular, the paper examines the materially divergent meanings ascribed to the mediation process as well as the disparate perceptions of its functions as between lay disputants and legal actor groups (including clients and their own lawyers).
Manifested in the very different things each camp aims to achieve during mediation, the findings illuminate several important paradoxes inherent in social and legal policy initiatives related to the resolution of civil disputes. On one level, the data represent a battle between legal versus extra-legal interests. Nevertheless, there is some evidence of the beginnings of lawyers' reconceptualisation of their own roles in thinking about and dealing with their cases on a more human, holistic basis. Arguably, this is a result of mediation's extra-legal world being thrust upon the legal world, regularly forcing lawyers to consider disputants' extra-legal issues as articulated during mediations. As such, the findings add to the literature on legal consciousness, civil mediation generally as well as specifically in the context of medical disputes.
