Abstract: “Litigation-mediation docking”is a working mechanism advocated and established in recent years by people’s courts to resolve social conflicts and disputes. There exist differences among the jurisprudential circle in defining the working mechanism of “litigation-mediation docking”. Whether from the literal meaning, or from the background, or from the practice to examine its performance, “litigation-mediation docking”should be defined as the bidirectional docking between litigation and mediation. The mechanism of supporting and connecting mediation with litigation consists of the incentives and disciplinary actions on litigation costs, the confirmation of the effectiveness of the procedural law for the mediation agreement and the entitled right to the parties requesting a timely trial. As a mechanism to shunt litigation, mediation covers a variety of measures to expand mediation application in judicial proceedings, including referral application, extension application and mandatory application. In some countries and regions around the world, there appears the mixed process that fuses the two special qualities of litigation and mediation together as one, the mutual support, coordination and convergence between litigation and mediation has reached a new height, it is worthwhile for China to learn from them.

Key words: mediation; litigation; litigation-mediation docking; hybrid process