Local Findings from North America: International Mediation Institute to release eight Global Pound Conference reports (Part 1: Miami, Austin, Los Angeles, Toronto and Baltimore)

The International Mediation Institute (IMI) has announced that it is publishing a suite of eight reports based on the 2016-2017 Global Pound Conference (GPC) events organised in North America. The suite consists of seven city-specific reports (one for each North American city that hosted a GPC), and an overarching report comparing results from across these areas.

The first five reports were released in early January and are now available online:

• GPC Miami Report
• GPC Austin Report
• GPC Los Angeles Report
• GPC Toronto Report
• GPC Baltimore Report

We will monitor the publication of the remaining three reports and will update the blog when they are released.

The GPC

The 2016-17 GPC series covered all forms of dispute resolution and brought together over 4,000 stakeholders at 28 conferences spanning 24 countries worldwide. The GPC series was a unique initiative to inform the future of dispute resolution in a data-driven manner by collecting survey data from delegates attending the conferences.

The GPC was initiated and led by the IMI. Herbert Smith Freehills is proud to have been a Global Sponsor of the project. The IMI, Herbert Smith Freehills and PWC have previously analysed data collected at the GPCs and in 2018 published a report on the dispute resolution needs of corporate users. That report is available here.

 GPC North America reports

The GPC North America reports are each based on data collected from focus groups attending the local GPCs. Focus groups consisted of stakeholders in the local dispute resolution community: delegates were either end-users of dispute resolution (in-house counsel or executives), advisers (private practice lawyers or consultants), adjudicative providers (judges, arbitrators or supporting institutions), non-adjudicative providers (mediators, conciliators or supporting institutions), or influencers (academics, government officers or policy makers).

Based on the expert and user input gathered from the focus group delegates, each report provides an in-depth analysis of the city's local dispute resolution landscape. The reports further set out recommendations for stakeholders on how to improve the dispute resolution climate. The city-specific reports follow a fixed structure and each addresses:

• the city's dispute resolution strengths, limitations and priorities;
• the needs, wants and expectations of parties using commercial dispute resolution locally;
• the state of the market and to what extent it falls below, meets or exceeds parties' expectations;
• obstacles and challenges in the local dispute resolution environment and what changes are required to overcome such obstacles; and
• a vision for the future of commercial dispute resolution in the city in the short term (0-5 years), the medium term (5-10 years) and the long term (over 10 years).