1. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Assoc. Prof. Dr., advocate-mediator Natalija Kaminskiene
Assoc. Prof. Dr., mediator Agne Tvaronaviciene
Mediation and Sustainable Dispute Resolution Laboratory
Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania)
Congratulations and thanks to organizers of the conference.
Introduction of myself.
Introduction of Mediation and Sustainable dispute resolution laboratory.
Notice of the 15 people team of mediation followers from Lithuania. Thank you for the support.

2. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Mediation and peaceful dispute resolution in Lithuania –
the hard way that took us more than 10 years to kindle mediation

3. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Why?
relatively short history of peaceful settlement in Lithuanian courts
litigious society
lack of funding
lack of information
litigation-oriented and mediation-opposed lawyers (advocates)
Is it true?
Not long past – judges expected to find out material truth and say who is right and who is wrong. But not to offer peaceful settlement in the court. Inquisitory process.
Prosecutors defending public interests were not expected to offer peaceful settlement.
In administrative procedure (disputes with state institutions) peaceful settlement was not even possible. Litigants had to go to courts of general jurisdiction to approving of peaceful treaties.
Litigous society – only 2 percent of all cases in 2015 were settled in the courts of 1 instance, 1 percent – in the courts of appeal instance.
Almost each project and activity on mediation in Lithuania confronts the fact that some lawyers are against mediation, they advise clients not to engage into peacefull dispute resolution and even appeal against offers (for example from police officers and prosecutors to try mediation). Most of mediators prefer to leave advocates outside the mediation room. Some of them even fear of offering parties to check solution reached at mediation table with their advocates – as a rule, parties come back rejecting settlement. Of course, I must admit that not all advocates in Lithuania are against mediation (several of them are pioners of mediation movement in Lithuania), but vast majority – reject that ADR procedure.
That is why Norway‘s judges recommendation to Lithuanian courts to offer court mediation in those cases where parties are represented by lawyers (as the most suitable and receptive for mediation) is not working. In some cases we can even hear from mediators: you will have to chose - me or advocate.

4. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Overview of present situation:
RL Law on Bar (Article 4) – since year 2005 advocates may be mediators and conciliators in commercial cases;
RL Law on Bar (Article 4) – since year 2013 advocates may be mediators and conciliators in any cases;
New Code of Bar Ethics – since 2016 advocates are prohibited to provoke groundless litigation and are obliged to foster their clients to solve disputes peacefully.
List of court mediators of Lithuania – 26 out of 154 listed court mediators are advocates and advocates’ assistants.

5. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Survey on Advocates’ opinion about peaceful dispute resolution and mediation (2015)
354 advocates (from 2074 listed advocates) participated in the survey.
Findings:
Most Lithuanian advocates believe that they know what mediation is (94 percent);
Most Lithuanian advocates know that they may act as mediators (96 percent);
Advocates that practice mediation or would try mediation (24 percent).
General meeting of advocates in spring, A table with the poster – “Let’s solve disputes peacefully”. Some advocates were approaching us to tell that we are doing good thing (promoting peaceful dispute resolution), others – blaming us that we intend to take away main source of income from advocates. So, it was rather hard task for us to perform this survey.
Majority of advocates participated in survey were men (60 percent) of age, who had more than 10 years of practice of advocate. Most of them were from Vilnius and had civil law specialization.

6. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Would Lithuanian advocates recommend mediation for their clients?

7. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Number of mediations performed by advocates – 275 cases (during 1 year period previous to survey)
Average number of mediations per advocate – 1.3 mediation (during 1 year period previous to survey)
Only 1/3 of respondents charged money for mediation services
Male advocates have more practice of mediation than female (men tried mediation two times more than women)
This fact can be interpreted in two ways: (1) it may show that Lithuanian advocates do not perceive mediation as a real legal service – only as supplementary activity ; (2) practicing and gaining experience in first mediation cases is more important for advocate than earning money – they understand first mediation cases as lessons and possibility to practically apply theoretic knowledge about mediation.
Women advocates are more cautious in using mediation than men

8. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Why advocates practice mediation?
New opportunities for advocates:
To provide new and
different kind of legal
assistance for clients
To earn additional income
To get feeling of self-satisfaction by rendering socially valuable services
Advocate - one party’s representative
Advocate - two parties’ consultant
Advocate-mediator

9. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Mediation challenges for advocates:
Feeling of being not necessary in mediation
Litigation oriented education of lawyers
Not clear rules of professional behavour for advocates acting in mediation
Different clients’ (and society) expectations of advocate profession
Threat to lose source of financial well being

10. Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Proposals on improving advocates’ attitude toward mediation:
Change of focus in legal education from litigation to choosing optimal dispute resolution procedure
Mediation trainings for advocates (with focus on their particular role in mediation)
Active involvement of advocates in mediation
Introducing set of rules of professional behavoiur for advocates in mediation

11. Thank you! For contacts: natalijak@mruni.eu
Advocates and peaceful dispute resolution - fears and expectations in Lithuania
Thank you! For contacts:
MRU Mediation and Sustainable Dispute Resolution Laboratory is interested in performing an international project devoted to the role of lawyers in mediation.