Mediation experience

Martin combines a clear grasp of underlying legal principles with wide experience of how they apply in working and business relationships.  From both commercial and legal viewpoints he understands the cost, risks and limits of going to court to settle disputes.

His practical and direct approach to mediation is based on commercial experience, leading teams and advising at senior level across a range of sectors, including the electronics and pharmaceutical industries, publishing, a French luxury goods group and a major City law firm.  He has developed a particular understanding of the human dimensions of structural and cultural business change.

Recent experience

Recent work has included mediating disputes or conflict between:

• members of an independent professional body
• a law firm and their client
• a landlord, her tenant and a neighbour after court proceedings for nuisance
• senior managers and team members in two international businesses;
• a public sector organisation and its senior professional adviser.

Professional experience

Originally a barrister, he has 30 years’ industrial, commercial and professional services experience as an HR specialist with board-level responsibility for boardroom, employment and workplace conflict resolution.

Along with continuous hands-on work with employees, employers, directors and partners, he has sat on a number of executive boards, including at one time as chief executive of a London NHS trust.

He is an alumnus of the Senior Management Program at Harvard Business School, holds the Financial Times Non-Executive Director Certificate, sits on the Safeguarding and Quality Panel for Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing and is a trustee of the Oxford-based charity Family Links.  He has also recently served on the Disciplinary Appeal Committee of the Chartered Insurance Institute and for 7 years on the Council of Governors for Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Approach

Martin describes his approach to mediation as “maximum informality while guarding the integrity of the process”.  He sees thorough preparation as a major part of successful mediation, avoiding wasted time on the day and getting quickly to the real issues in dispute. He prides himself on being rigorous, versatile, friendly – and persistent.