I was trained in commercial mediation by the ADR Group. I am a Fellow of the National Center of Technology and Dispute Resolution (NCTDR) at the University of Massachusetts and a founder Board Member of the International Council for Online Dispute Resolution (www.icodr.org). I am a  registered mediator with The Civil Mediation Council.

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As a mediator I have  developed novel techniques within the field of Interest-Based Mediation which operates beyond the traditional areas of compromise by helping each party to the dispute to consider interests they may have that, whilst peripheral to the main issue, can be affected adversely as a consequence of the dispute not being resolved, no matter what the outcome of the litigation. By focusing on identifying all interests, including those not obviously linked, that may be impacted by the continuation of the dispute and examining in detail the potential damage each side may suffer on the absence of agreement, the parties themselves then begin to express their own desire to resolve the matter between themselves. In other words, I works to bring the parties to the point where it is they, the parties in dispute, who begin to press for settlement, not the mediator seeking to coax them into it.

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I specialise almost exclusively in helping shareholders in private limited companies and partners in business and professional  partnerships  to resolve their differences and agree on a way forward. To learn more of my approach you can view many of the hundreds of advices I have posted publicly since 2007 on the llegal section at  www.UKBusinessForums.co.uk  (Search 'The Resolver') as well as view testimonials on my site at www.BoardroomResolve.com .

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I am recognised as a leading expert in the application of technology to dispute resolution.  I regularly am invited to give presentations on the subject at dispute resolution and justice conferences. I have been honoured to be asked to host the 25th Annual International Conference on Online Dispute Resolution, originally co-created in 2001 by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) , which will be held in London in April 2025. 

  

I  have been invited to advise the court services in the UK , Canada, Bulgaria, Lithuania and currently am contracted to Ukraine, on applying technology tools to improve dispute resolution and access to justice.

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I am an official Observer to the European Cyberjustice Network. launched in 2021 by the European Committee for the Efficiency of Justice (a  creation of The Council of Europe).

 

I was a member of the ODR Advisory Group appointed by the Civil Justice Council (CJC)  to advise the UK's Ministry of Justice on the role of ODR in a modernised civil justice system. Our Report was published in February 2015  (see here) . The Report by Lord Justice Briggs into the future structure of the court system  recommended our proposal in the CJC Report for an online court offering ODR solutions be actioned.  The first online court has now opened and in public Beta testing for civil money claims.

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A little bit of history was made in February 2019 when I helped parties to a dispute running through the then newly established online civil money court  was settled within an hour using Artificial Intelligence. See this news article and , for more details, an article I wrote for the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers.

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I was also  a member of the Civil Justice Council's 6 person ADR Working Group tasked to advise on how to increase use of Alternative Dispute Resolution, and in particular mediation  (see our Final 2018 Report here). My blog listing the ODR references in that Report can be read here.  

 

In 2014, I  was invited to advise in meeting the Committee of Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe on the impact of ODR on access to justice and human rights. The Committee produced a draft Resolution, since adopted by the Council, which calls on all 47 member States to promote the development and use of Online Dispute Resolution. In February 2016, I was invited  to be an advisor  to an EU funded research project led by the Faculty of Law at Salamanca University in Spain to consider the role of online mediation in cross-border disputes.

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As well as my private practice as a business mediator and negotiator, I have been Head of the European Advisory Board for a Silicon Valley spin-off from eBay and PayPal called Modria Inc. The Modria team, now spread across offices in the USA, UK and India,  are part of Tyler Technologies. They designed, built and ran the dispute resolution systems pioneered by eBay and PayPal .

I have  been an innovator in the field of mediation, developing two areas of novel specialism being disputes between shareholders in private companies leading to stalemate situations (see www.BoardroomResolve.com) and mediating online .​



I co-founded the UK's first ODR service, a blind bidding service called We Can Settle in 2001, and subsequently the online mediation service The Mediation Room, which was launched by Lord Woolf , former Lord Chief Justice, at the Law Society and on which platform trials have been conducted for PayPal, the UK Small Claims Court, the Law Council of Australia  and other organisations.

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I am now Head of International Marketing for Smartsettle Resolutions Inc of British Columbia,a leading developer of AI tools to aid negotiation and mediation.

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I was a member of the Working Party of the European Committee on Standardisation (CEN) which developed a Workshop Agreement on standards for Online Dispute Resolution and  a member of the EU funded EMCOD project led by the University of Tilburg and which has developed an online tool for the measurement of justice through ODR.



I was the co-author of the European chapter in “Online Dispute Resolution: Theory and Practice” and which was published in 2010 (Eleven Publishing - ISB 9490947253), which described as "a state-of-the-art overview and assessment of the status quo and future of the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) field."

I speak regularly at international conferences on the impact of the law on the Internet and e-commerce and on technology in the judiciary and Alternative Dispute Resolution. I have  been presenting regularly at conferences on ODR since 2002 when the now annual International Forum on Online Dispute Resolution was first launched at the Palais Des Nations in Geneva by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. The Forum, which  has travelled around five continents, was  hosted by myself in 2007 at the University of Liverpool. I have presented at events in the Czech Republic,  Bulgaria , Poland, Azerbaijan, where I chaired the workshop on ODR at the Internet Governance Forum, France, Argentina, USA, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Croatia  and other places.  In 2012 I was invited by the European Commission to attend an expert group round table in Brussels on introducing a new European Law on Alternative Dispute Resolution and ODR for Business to Business disputes across Europe.   

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I  developed the leading training course in applying technology to ADR and, as such, has trained mediators from over 20 countries as well as developing and delivering a course for the Milan Chamber of Arbitration and for the UK Ministry of Justice.

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