Perceptions in Litigation and Mediation
Lawyers, Defendants, Plaintiffs, and Gendered Parties

The book compares the different perceptions of legal disputes during litigation and mediation processes.

Tamara Relis (Author)

9780521517317, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 January 2009

304 pages, 29 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.62 kg

Offering interdisciplinary insights from sociological, psychological and gender studies, this book addresses this question: how do professional, lay and gendered actors understand and experience case processing in litigation and mediation? Drawing on data from 131 interviews, questionnaires and observations of plaintiffs, defendants, lawyers and mediators involved in 64 fatality and medical injury cases, the book challenges dominant understandings of how formal legal processes and dispute resolution work in practice as well as the notion that disputants and their representatives broadly understand and want the same things during case processing. In juxtaposing actors' discourse on all sides of ongoing cases on issues such as expectations, needs, comprehensions of what plaintiffs seek from the legal system, objectives for resolving conflict at mediation, and perceptions of what occurs during attempts at case resolution, the findings reveal inherent problems with the core workings of the legal system.

1. Introduction
2. Great misconceptions or disparate perceptions of plaintiffs' litigation aims?
3. Voluntary versus mandatory mediation divide
4. Consequences of power: legal actors versus disputants on defendants' attendance at mediation
5. Actors' mediation objectives: how lawyers versus parties plan to resolve their cases short of trial
6. Actors' divergent perceptions of what goes on during mediation
7. Parallel views on mediators and styles
8. Conclusion: the parallel understandings and experiences in case processing and mediation.

Subject Areas: Private / Civil law: general works [LNB], Arbitration, mediation & alternative dispute resolution [LNAC5], Private international law & conflict of laws [LBG], Legal skills & practice [LAS]