Agnė Tvaronavičienė

RESEARCH ON ATTITUDE OF LITHUANIAN LAWYERS TO PEACEFUL DISPUTE RESOLUTION AND MEDIATION

The article analyzes the attitide of Lithuanian lawyers (advocates) towards the peaceful settlement of disputes and mediation, which are embedded in Lithuanian law, are started to be applied in practice in Lithuanian courts (judicial mediation) since year 2005, but hardly find proper place in practice of Lithuanian lawyers. The publication contains brief theoretical analysis on role of a lawyer in mediation (lawyer-mediator, lawyer-neutral adviser and lawyer-party representative), their different functions. Also the necessity of additional education for lawyers in the field of alternative dispute resolution is highlighted. Afterwards the article presents a survey on attitide of Lithuanian advocates towards peaceful settlement of disputes and mediation. This survey was performed in 2015 at the General meeting of Lithuanian advocates. 354 advocates participated in the survey. The conducted survey examines issues of lawyers‘ knowledge about mediation, their use of mediation in practice and reasons for non-use. Based on the survey findings proposals for measures that could encourage the advocates to have more favorable attitude to the peaceful settlement of disputes and mediation, making these advanced processes natural and priority-order way of dispute resolution, were formulated.

Legal Environment within the EU: Free Movement of Lawyers and Legal Services

Authors of the present article analyze legislation of the European Union on provision of legal services in another EU member state. This article also examines case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, consequently revealing problems of applying the analyzed legislation in practice. The authors pay special attention to the analysis of the norms, provided in the Law on Advocacy of the Republic of Lithuania, which are related to establishment and provision of services of other EU member states in the Republic of Lithuania, and critically evaluate the compliance of certain norms of the Law to the requirements of the European Union legislation.