By Alistair Steele
A lawyer from a Centretown law firm is in Russia to teach officials the fundamentals of alternative dispute resolution.
Rob Nelson, a partner at the Elgin Street office of Gowling, Strathy and Henderson left Ottawa for Moscow three weeks ago. He’ll spend the next seven or eight months showing Russian judges, ministry officials and other top decision makers how to help settle disputes out of court.
Gowlings won the chance to send Nelson to Moscow last May after the Russian Foundation for Legal Reform invited firms specializing in alternative dispute resolution to submit applications to lead the project, which is funded in part by the World Bank. The firm beat out about five others for the $2.8-million contract.
The project’s aim is to save Moscow time and money. Russia’s legal system is already facing a daunting backlog and a severe cash shortage, and Russians are suffering through one of the worst financial crises in their country’s history. Through mediation and arbitration, officials trained in alternative dispute resolution may help take some of the strain off the system.
“In countries where we see these methods employed, the success rate is very high — about 75 per cent of cases are settled before they go to before a judge,” Nelson said before leaving. “That’s because the people who are properly trained at mediation are very good at it.”
In Canada, people involved in civil suits must go through mediation first.
Nelson says projects like this one are especially important in countries making the transition from centrally-controlled to free market economies.
“If you can’t solve your disputes, it inhibits the development of a society as a whole,” he says. “What these skills will do is strengthen legitimate bodies of law, and strengthen respect for institutions.”
Glynn Barratt, an expert on Russia at Carleton University, calls the project optimistic but necessary.
“Whether it’s likely to achieve the results we want is another thing, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to help,” he says. In Russia, there is no law in our sense. One can’t rely on jurisprudence and the legal framework the way one can here.”
Nelson has been interested in alternative dispute resolution for about 15 years. He is the former executive director of the Arbitration and Mediation Institute of Canada, and Gowlings’ expert in the field.
This isn’t the firm’s first foray into Russia. Gowlings has had an office in Moscow since 1990, and helped the Russian government draft its bankruptcy law shortly after the fall of communism.
Nor is it Nelson’s first trip to Russia. In fact, it’s his fifth.
On a recent visit in January, he taught a pilot course to help him plan the current project. On this trip, he’ll instruct a core group of 20 officials who will then teach courses of their own. In May, Nelson will help organize a national seminar on alternative dispute resolution featuring speakers from around the world, including Canada’s former governor general Ray Hnatyshyn. Then comes another series of seminars looking at actual applications of alternative dispute resolution techniques. By September or October, Nelson will head back to Ottawa.
Nelson says the best thing about alternative dispute resolution is that it gives litigants the chance to face each other in a non-judicial setting.
“There’s a greater sense of freedom, and often a greater sense of resolution,” he says.
But what can a lawyer from Ottawa teach Russians about their own legal system?
“The human nature of dispute is the same the world over,” he says. “In Russia, they have the same concerns about life and liberty as we do. What we’re trying to show them is that going to court is not the only away to resolve a dispute.”