EN ROuTE TO A COLLAbORATIVE mIND-sET: whY LEgAL EDuCATION NEEDs TO ChANgE

The doctrinal, adversarial nature of the education of lawyers not only affects the way they think, it also informs their approach to alternative mechanisms of dispute resolution such as mediation. The paper relies on mediation to highlight the problems that can arise from the adversarial stance. It considers the construction of ethical identities and discusses how legal training leads the majority of lawyers to primarily become adversarial advocates. While there is no single style of mediation, there are rules of professional conduct that do apply. However, there can be tactical advantages in the use of mediation that could be ethically questionable. Ethical styles are used to predict how ethical identities can impact on the practice of mediation. Finally, the article proposes that a more integrative teaching approach to skills and ethics would be more appropriate for students entering the modern legal marketplace.