The Importance of Neutrality. Member Spotlight: Uwala Murphy-Akpieyi
Who is she? What is her background?
Uwala Esther Murphy-Akpieyi is a lawyer, an Itsekiri woman from Delta State in Nigeria West Africa, a chartered arbitrator (MNlCARB), and an accredited mediator and certified facilitator/trainer. She is an MBBl-trained reflective structured dialogue facilitator, additionally, she has a post-graduate diploma in peace studies and conflict resolution and restorative justice specialized training organized by the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse (LMDC) and the rule of law and anti-corruption program of the British council in national disputes settlements. She is based in Lekki-Lagos, Nigeria.
During the COVID-19 pandemic lock down, she took certification training in online mediation (ODR) by Mediate.com and ADR Europe, she sees it as a new opportunity for mediation “l just love this new adaptation because of the flexibility”.
She is a fellow an trainee from many organizations including: The Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators, The Standing Conference of Mediation Advocate (SCMA) UK, a Fellow of the World Mediation Organization (WMO), a Fellow Institute of Chartered Mediators and conciliators (FICMC), a Member Nigerian Chartered institute of Arbitration (NiCArb), a Member Lagos court of Arbitration (LCA) and a Member of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce.
Where does she work?
After obtaining her degree in Law from the UK, Uwala became a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Soon after she joined the corporate world as manager in legal services and personnel, “l was later appointed the Company Secretary and Legal Adviser. I handled all employee employer disputes and everything to do with negotiating with the local trade union, amongst others. l did not know it was mediation, but that was what I did”.
Uwala is a passionate practitioner and advocate of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). She is mediator with the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse (LMDC), the Delta State Multi-Door Courthouse, Lagos Court of Arbitration Small Claims Panel. As a neutral, she serves the public privately. She is conflict management coach and a facilitator, and her area of specialization is commercial and civil, workplace disputes, tort, property and estate, community issues and cultural disputes and victim offender mediation. She is also a mediation advocate, and she represents her clients in mediation. She is a faculty member of the Nigerian Chartered Institute of Arbitration for the online associate training programme in negotiation. She is the founder and principal of Uwala Murphy-Akpieyi and Co. (Mene-Afejuku Chambers) a multidisciplinary commercial and dispute resolution law firm. Further, she founded a mediation and conflict management consultancy, Trinity Mediation and uses her background in litigation, mediation, arbitration, and conflict resolution to settle disputes.
Why did she choose mediation?
As a lawyer, she believes that it was time to change her path especially after attending the mediation training course with the Lagos Multi-Door Court Training Institute. She realized that she has been an effective mediator for much of her career, so she developed a formal interest in studying mediation and decided to pursue a Post Graduate Diploma in Peace and Studies and Conflict Resolution in Nigeria. She has been ‘formally’ meditating ever since as mediation become a way of thinking for Uwala. Uwala can be described as a person who “like peace rather than war”. As a result, mediation for her is more than simply work to do “it is a vocation and it is a business, and if I become very wealthy and I do not need money, I will still be doing mediation.” Uwala chooses mediation because she finds that mediation as a much quicker way to resolve conflict than waiting for trial and appeal in court, especially with the anxiety, fear, and uncertainty of going to court.
Why is mediation important?
It is not only the people and community that have accepted mediation as a new way to resolve disputes, but the government of Nigeria has also started to see mediation as an effective way of dispute resolution “they are aware of the benefits and importance of mediation, and they are working to encourage it”.
Mediators are neutral facilitators who work in a confidential way, they guide the parties who participate voluntarily in this process to help them think outside the box for possible solutions to the dispute. Hence, the process will focus on “Empowering the parties to decide for themselves how and whether they would like to resolve the dispute”, which will result in the parties understanding each other and work to resolve the “Underlying issues to the disputes”. In addition, mediation usually takes less time and less money to resolve conflict in counter to the court’s system and will result in mutually agreeable between the parties. Through mediation she believes that “Parties are able to understand each other’s point of view and they also have an opportunity to be heard and understood themselves”
In the end, she sees that “Mediation enables parties to avoid the” win-lose” and” lose-lose” outcomes associated with litigation and enables parties to move forward efficiently and effectively from disputes”
Who is the good mediator?
Uwala believes that a good mediator needs to possess the six main skills to help them through their work. To begin with, a mediator needs to have a good negotiation ability to help with the process management. Secondly, a mediator needs to be always prepared and know the details of who the parties are and what they need. Thirdly, a good mediator must listen well to understand and not just to gather information from the parties, which will result in the ability to ask questions. Fourthly, the mediator needs to know who and what to ask in order to have all the accurate information and feeling. Fifthly, a mediator shall have good communication skills in order to help the parties themselves to communicate with each other. Finally, and foremost, the mediator needs to be neutral because it is important for the mediator to be unbiased, otherwise, the parties will lose confidence in the mediator as a result of standing with one over the other.
How is she seeing the future of mediation?
Uwala believes mediation is going to grow more in the future “Mediation is growing every day”, and it is not only because of its importance but also because it’s not a new practice in the world especially in Africa “we always had mediation in Africa”. In the African communities, the elders always sat together to resolve conflict and disputes between communities and people, hence, it is not hard for people to accept this practice in a more formal way as a part of the justice system.
She stated that “The mediation process used in traditional African societies in the past enabled parties to interact with each other and promote consensus building and order in society, while the courts have not lived up to its expectations in litigation”. However, she sees that there is still a need for more awareness campaigns about the application of the mediation process to resolve disputes.
Uwala hopes that in the future “There will be uniform mediation certification training that is worth the while, we may need to inculcate some certification examinations, it could be some objective test for the licensing for more value and quality, we need to have some form of formalized profession in the nearest future” She believes that “The standard we deserve for mediation should be 12 years in a profession and 40 hours mediation training”, and although it may look hard standard, she sees that “With such standard, we may be able to define mediation for ourselves in future”
However, in her opinion, the biggest challenge to the mediation process is “Finding legitimacy within the judicial framework”, which is something that can be aligned with the Singapore Convention of 1999, and the international commercial mediated settlement agreements which are now enforceable. She state that “It is, however, important, and imperative that countries are signatories to the convention and the judicial system of each state are part of the process, to ensure the success of enforcement and smooth transition between mediation and enforcement”.
Article by Yousra Hasona, MBBI Writer