Meet the Mediators: Get to Know our Panel of Expert Lawyer-Mediators

Choosing the right mediator can transform the way conflicts are resolved. In our Meet the Mediators series, we give you an inside look at the people behind the process, showcasing their expertise, approach, and the qualities that make them stand out. This series is a great way to see the human side of mediation and why choosing the right mediator can make all the difference.

Find out more about the mediators we've spoken to below.

Kay Baker

Kay is a Partner & Head of Contentious Trusts and Probate at Ellisons, specialising in civil and commercial disputes. Kay is also Head of Court of Protection.

"These disputes may have been brewing for decades, decades and decades. And often by the time they get to mediation, they've been fully blown for quite a while to be able to say, yeah, next Thursday we're going to mediate. And if it's successful by the end of next Thursday, the dispute is going to be over."

Paul Lunt

Paul is Partner and Head of Litigation at Brabners as well and is a highly regarded and multi-award-winning commercial litigator and sports lawyer.

"A new mediation, it's like reading a new book. You get stuck into it and you want to just get to grips with, okay well how's this going to end. And I think it's the diversity and the challenge of being able to try and solve that particular problem."

James Johnston

James is a Partner and Head of our Dispute Resolution team at Barnetts Solicitors. He specialises in contractual, construction and commercial litigation, including professional negligence.

"There's often more in common than parties in disputes realise. Sometimes the thinking beforehand is, well, l've got nothing in common with my opponents, I just need to win, win, win. And then when you really start to work with them, you realise that actually underneath all of that - it's that iceberg picture that there is - there is more in common here than you would care to, to admit, or perhaps even realise at the outset. When you can start to tease that out of the parties and realise that you've, you've actually got a common goal here and then helping them come towards that common goal together is, a really satisfying sense of achievement."

Danielle Stevenson

Danielle is Director at Anderson Strathern and is based in their family team, advising clients in all aspects of separation, divorce, cohabitation and prenuptial agreements and the full range of child law issues.

"Actually the fundamental point generally tends to be that both parents care and love about their children so much that they're so focused on that they're not thinking about the fact that the other parent also has the love and care for the child so ensuring that the focus really is on the child in that process and then helping people to come to arrangements that again ensure that the child is the focus they're the main priority that's that's kind of the the main thing and the thing that I enjoy the most about about most about about mediation."

Claire Rolston

Claire Rolston is Principal Solicitor at CLRLaw and is their resident employment expert, having practised employment law almost exclusively since she qualified in 2001.

"We can see that mediation is a really, really quick and easy way for for parties to reach a dispute without having that huge delay, without having that huge cost of of lawyers on both sides. It just seems to me to be the best for parties to resolve their disputes in a just a far simpler way."

Tim Toomey

Tim is Partner is Commercial Litigator at Ward Hadaway. He has long been recognised by prestigious legal directories and his clients as one of the leading commercial dispute lawyers in the North East.

"As a dispute professional, I see my job as helping parties get to the point, getting to a sweet spot, where we've got enough information exchanged and we know what the issues are and the parameters for a deal. And mediation, I quickly found, it's the ideal process."

Jemma Forrest

Jemma is a Director in the Employment, Immigration and Pensions team at Anderson Strathern. She regularly represents both employer and employee clients across the private and public sectors.

"That's one of the key drivers for why I wanted to become a mediator. The flexibility around what can be offered at the end of a mediation is just far more suited to a lot of employment disputes that we tend to see day- to-day, and that's not to say that that cases aren't appropriate for for a court process, but mediation can offer solutions that a court process perhaps can't."

Michael Chambers

Michael is a Partner and leads the Resolution and Recovery Team at HM3 Legal, as well as being a trained commercial mediator.

"As a mediator, I think that the start of the day, you're often met with a lot of very tense and sometimes quite angry faces. And there is a point during the day in a mediation where you're able to unlock that and the air clears a little bit, tensions lift. And if you can turn the direction of the mediation day to being one that's a lot more productive, where some people are able to let things go and look to a more practical solution, then that's what really drives me as a mediator."

Rachel Murray-Smith

Rachel is Partner at Sharpe Pritchard and specialises in projects and procurement matters, with a particular focus on construction.

"It's that ability to achieve an outcome that otherwise wouldn't be possible if you went down the route of adjudication or litigation. As a firm we predominantly act for the public sector almost exclusively, so for me l really see it as: you can achieve that arguably better outcome at a fraction of the cost and it becomes a no-brainer in that sense, why wouldn't you do it?"