In October 2013, Vasil Kisil & Partners law firm conducted a series of workshops: “Mediation in Employment and Labour Law and Reasons Behind It”. These seminars were organized in the framework of the 2013 Muskie Mentor/Advisor Exchange (MAX) under the Edmund Muskie Fellowship program (US EEOC New York District Office) aimed to support continued professional relationships between Muskie alumni and their American host advisors, supervisors, professors, and mentors.

The endeavour was supported by Edinburgh Business School in Eastern Europe and the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. The total number of participants exceeded 50 people and included corporate lawyers and other legal department staff, legal experts in the field of employment and labour law, HR directors and HR managers, as well as representatives of leading law firms.

The seminars focused on mediation as an effective method of dispute resolution in labour and employment law and featured lawyer Deborah Reik, a mediator with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Oksana Voynarovska, VKP's Partner, Head of Labour and Employment, Vladyslav Podolyak, VKP’s Senior Associate, Galyna Yeromenko, Manager and Trainer, and Svitlana Chebakova, the Head of the Independent Mediation Department at the Ukrainian Mediation Centre, covering the following topics:

• Mediation in Ukraine: current situation and development prospects;
• The benefits of mediation overall both to common people and commercial world, employees and employers;
• Efficiency of mediation in employment law;
• Mediation inside the firms/companies in case of dispute between employees;
• Possibility of conduction mediation in the court;
• Qualifications of mediators and how to choose a mediator;
• Tools of mediation, different styles of conducting mediation;
• Methods of making mediation a trustful institute for its parties;
• How to secure resolution made through mediation.

During a mock mediation participants underwent a skill building session on how to resolve a conflict through mediation, learned what style of mediation is most suitable to them and how to make the most of their participation in mediation.

The hottest topics that held the attention of the audience had to do with realities of mediation in Ukraine and the United States, as well as mechanisms to ensure the implementation of the resolutions made by mediation. The attendees also seemed eager to find out about where and how to train mediators and what kind of education and professional experience are required in order to become a mediator, as well as trends of mediation becoming more and more popular among companies as the least-costly and more efficient in terms of time resources method of alternative dispute resolution.