The Legal Profession Post-ADR: From Mediation to Collaborative Law.

This article examines the changing role of the legal profession with regard to the incorporation of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and collaborative law into legal practice. Lawyers have adapted to ADR, both in the ways in which they have adopted mediation as a form of practice within the litigation cycle and also in the way they seek to incorporate ADR within the profession through eg collaborative law. While change within legal practise is welcomed, reflection is needed about the nature of these developments. The point has been reached in the development of mediation in Australia where we need to seek answers to questions about where lawyer mediation is situated as a dispute resolution method, how it is defined and practised, and whether the practice of collaborative law better serves the community.