All is not well at the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (Cedr). Three years after it was created to capitalise on the expected rise in mediation rates following the introduction of Lord Woolf’s Civil Procedure Rules (CPR), the organisation has reported that its caseload has dropped an astonishing 26% in the past 12 months.
The result is particularly surprising considering that in 1999-2000, the first year after the Woolf reforms, mediations soared by 141% in a single year. But by 2001-02, the rise had dropped to just 1%. A year later it seemed the flood, which had become a trickle, had started to drain away.
