Mediation Skills Competition

The Worshipful Company of Arbitrators announced its first UK Mediation Skills contest in July 2010 and competitions have been held every two years since. The Competition is open to universities, law colleges and younger members of the profession throughout the UK and is intended to assist in training law students and younger members of the profession to better understand the skills needed to be effective in negotiation and mediation and to give them the opportunity to exhibit and develop their problem-solving skills. The teams are divided into requesting and responding parties and adopt the role of counsel and client before an experienced mediator and judges. At the end of each session the teams are given constructive feedback by the judges to help them develop their skills.

Teams are encouraged to display and develop the skills necessary to be an effective negotiator and advocate including: planning in advance of the meeting; considering the strengths and weaknesses of their own and their opponents’ position; developing a strategy for the negotiations; presentation of their own position; active and effective listening to their opponents; responding positively to what is heard; creative engagement with the negotiation process; adopting a principled approach; generating options to resolve difficulties.

The Eighth UK Mediation Skills Competition for UK Law Students

London 21^st  to 23^rd January 2022 at IDRC

CLOSING DATE FOR ENTRIES FRIDAY 10 DECEMBER 2021

The Worshipful Company of Arbitrators (WCA) is pleased to invite entries for the eighth UK Mediation Skills Competition for law students and trainees and pupils at UK Universities, Law Colleges, Law Schools, Law Firms, Inns of Court and Barristers’ Chambers

Team Members who take part should gain:

• Enhanced written and oral presentational and advocacy skills
• A chance to practise negotiating skills and to explore different approaches in mediation
• An opportunity to exercise their problem-solving skills in mock commercial mediations moderated by professional mediators
• An insight into best practice in commercial mediation
• A unique addition to their CV

Each team should consist of up to four eligible law students, trainees or pupils in chambers and a team coach.  All law students and trainees and pupils are made welcome; experience has shown that the competition is of particular value and appeal to students of the LPC, the BPTC, the Diploma in Legal Practice and LLMs which include ADR and mediation within their syllabus. The students in each team adopt the role of counsel and client and seek to resolve a commercial dispute working with each other, their counterparty and an experienced mediator.  Their performance is evaluated by some of the country’s leading dispute resolution specialists, who participate in the Competition as judges.

Team Contacts and Coaches

Each team must register a Team Contact.  The Team Contact may also be the Team Coach but this is not essential and the coach may be a different member of the teaching staff, a student or an external person.

Please note that the competition is not open to individual students.

How to Enter

The Rules of the Competition are attached. Intending entrants should study the Rules carefully and be aware of the contents, including the eligibility criteria for team members.  A registration fee of £175 is payable and, to apply, please complete the accompanying Entry Form and send a scanned copy by email to both clerk@arbitratorscompany.org and  nac@academy-experts.org

We appreciate that teams may require time to select their members and so the names of the team coach and the team members do not need to be included in the entry application.

If you have any questions then please contact Nicola Cohen: nac@academy-experts.org