The Role of Lawyers in European ADR

This paper deals with the scarce diffusion of the ADR practice in Europe. Regarding the arbitration, the reason lies in the high costs of this procedure, while respect to the other out-of-Court procedures, like mediation, there is a large mistrust among lawyers, due to lack of training to cooperation and dialogue.\n\n\n\nRecently a EU Directive has pushed towards mediation in civil and commercial lawsuits, where cross-border cases are particularly complex due to different national laws and practical matters like costs or language. National legislators have used this occasion to introduce a general discipline of mediation, applicable to domestic disputes as well. So most lawyers are called to abandon their adversarial approach in order to prepare for a cooperative negotiation.\n\n\n\nThe author examines the numerous aspects on which a lawyer can play his role in every step of a mediation proceeding, and bring the client to an amicable satisfactory settlement.