Experiences of judicial mediation in employment tribunals

The focus of this chapter is on judicial mediation—that is, mediation undertaken by judges—in the UK Employment Tribunal (labor court) system. After reviewing the broader judicial mediation literature and issues in relation to ethics and outcomes, the main part of the chapter describes the context, design, and evaluation of a pilot undertaken in three regions of the UK involving a facilitative mediation style. In addition to reviewing earlier findings from the project, new evidence from survey questionnaires is presented shedding light in particular on demographic variations in “tribunal avoidance rates,” a key measure of policy success. Conclusions and wider implications for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) are explored in light of the evidence that the measure involved additional costs and no statistically significant impact of the intervention could be identified.