Love of Video Mediation in the Time of Covid-19: An Initial Insight into Benefits and Challenges

Mediation’s claim to legitimacy is based largely on its promise to integrate responsiveness to personal needs and values into the process of dispute resolution, offering “personalised justice” based on human needs. As face-to-face mediation sessions are not possible during the Covid-19 outbreak, mediation service providers are offering video mediation services. Before the onset of the pandemic, video mediation was used on a much smaller scale. Whilst this article highlights the benefits of video mediation it also identifies challenges that must be faced when seeking to incorporate video mediation as an integral part of service provision post-pandemic. It emphasises that if mediation is to continue to provide high quality personalised justice it is vital that practitioners, when considering the appropriate medium for each mediation, give thorough consideration to a wide range of factors. Such factors include parties’ need to maintain or reduce distance (geographical and psychological), and the rise of a new form of vulnerability that hinders less IT literate persons’ access to alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. The author includes references to her own personal experience of conducting video mediations in the United Kingdom (UK) and recommends the way forward for optimal integration of videoconferencing into mediation practice.