Hello everyone, I'm a Mexican Lawyer focused on Litigation, Arbitration and ADR in general. I head Baker McKenzie's Mexico City's Litigation and Government Enforcement Group. I've been involved un many negotiations and mediations, both as an advocate and as a mediator. I'm looking to receive formal training to enrich my practice, especially in light of Mexico's current judiciary problems, that have caused Mediation to be a viable alternative to going to Court.
Hello everyone, I am delighted to be part of the CEDR Faculty as one of the leads. I was in your position in 2002 and found it both very challenging and very rewarding, it was life changing for me. My background was as a personal injury and clinical negligence solicitor for many years. I am now a full time mediator (and trainer) and have, over time, became a specialist in clinical negligence and personal injury mediations. I am excited to be part of the team on this course and to meeting you all. You may recognise me in some of the course videos....please don't judge!
Hi All, I am very much looking forward to the course. I am a specialist employment and discrimination solicitor looking to develop my mediation skills given the current abomination that is the Employment Tribunal system. Claims often last for years without resolution at huge financial and emotional costs to my clients. I hope to be able to add to my skill-set and develop a mediation practice where I can offer alternative resolution to clients to avoid the painful litigation process. I look forward to meeting you all. Liz McGlone (Managing Partner - didlaw).
Hi everyone, I am looking forward to this course and to meeting you all. I have been a litigation and restructuring lawyer for over 27 years at A&O Shearman, and have been involved in various global management roles. The past 2.5 years I have worked as general counsel of CVC, a private equity firm. I have taken a break to explore new options, so finally time and headspace to do this course. Brechje van der Velden
Hi All, very much looking forward to the course and meeting you all. I am an arbitration & litigation lawyer based in Helsinki (doing both counsel and arbitrator work), currently heading the dispute resolution team in a local boutique firm. I was previously an in-house litigator at GE and Baker Hughes, where I also first realized how powerful mediation can be as a dispute resolution tool. Now looking forward for this course to perhaps one day step to the mediator role.
Hello everyone, great to meet you. I’m a specialist intellectual property lawyer and co-managing partner of a boutique firm in London called Briffa. My focus is IP litigation, and over the years I have seen first-hand the value that mediation can bring when helping parties resolve disputes. I hope one day to sit in the mediator’s chair and I’m very much looking forward to starting this course.
Hi everyone, I’m Elizabeth. Like Liz, I’m an employment lawyer 😊. I trained at Freshfields, completed secondments in financial services, and am currently in the Office of General Counsel at Latham & Watkins, where a lot of my work sits closely alongside HR and employee relations teams on complex workplace issues.
I’m particularly interested in mediation as a practical extension of that work — especially where there is an opportunity to resolve conflict earlier, preserve working relationships or avoid matters becoming more entrenched. And, as Liz has already touched on, the current delays in the Employment Tribunal system only make alternative forms of resolution more important.
I'm also working on building my own employment law and people advisory practice, with a strong focus on resolution, investigations and difficult people issues.
Really looking forward to the course and meeting everyone.
Hello everyone, I'm Arjun, a New York-qualified lawyer and Founding Partner of Argentum Law and I’m based between Dubai (where I grew up) and Lisbon.
I've spent roughly twenty years in cross-border transactional work: M&A, joint ventures and project finance, first at Shearman & Sterling, Allen & Overy and Latham & Watkins across New York, London, Paris and Dubai, and since then in my own practice. Most of my work has involved parties from different legal systems, languages and commercial cultures working towards agreement and cutting out inefficiencies and transaction costs which is what drew me to building an international mediation practice.
I'm looking forward to the role plays in particular, and to learning from a group that I expect will bring very different professional backgrounds to the room.
Looking forward to meeting you all in October!
Hi all, I'm Martin and I am a lawyer at the Government Legal Department. Prior to this I worked in tax litigation for over ten years where I have attended mediations, but hoping to build on this experience. Very much looking forward to the course and meeting everyone.
Hi everyone, I'm Regina. Based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Originally a capital markets lawyer at one of the top firms in Copenhagen. Now self employed mostly doing corporate law work. Would like to shift into the mediation field. Have taken a couple of mediation courses in Denmark but really looking forward to leaning more and meeting all of you.
Hello everyone, I'm Katie. I am a solicitor and specialise in resolving private wealth disputes, most commonly relating to trusts and inheritance. I trained and worked at Withers in London before moving to rural Suffolk seven years ago. Most recently, I was a member of the private wealth disputes team at Birketts. I have been involved in a number of mediations as a solicitor and am interested to learn more about the mediator's role. I would like to shift my professional focus to mediation so am excited to be attending this course. I look forward to meeting you all in October!
Hi everyone! I'm Natalie, and I'm really excited to be joining this CEDR mediation course with all of you. I'm originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I studied law. I took my LL.M. at Harvard and now live in São Paulo. I'm a founding partner at Graça Couto Advogados, a boutique law firm, where I head our Corporate/M&A practice. I've had the chance to take part in a few mediations, and I came away genuinely impressed by the process, especially coming from Brazil, where arbitration can be very expensive and court cases can take years to reach a conclusion. I can't wait to meet you all, hear about your backgrounds and experiences, and learn together over the coming weeks. See you soon!
Hello everyone, I'm Frederick Way and I'm one of the Lead Trainers for the October Course. I'm really looking forward to meeting you all and it will be great to welcome you to the wonderful world of mediation!
As background, I originally trained as a barrister but moved into mediation early in my career, as I love the ability to work on both sides of a dispute. I worked full time for CEDR for 13 years running the CEDR Foundation (CEDR's charity and research arm) as well as working as a mediator and trainer. I now work full-time as a civil, commercial and employment mediator and specialise in cases where there is an additional personal or sensitive element to the dispute - for example, founder/partnership disputes, employment/workplace disputes; civil discrimination claims.
I hope you enjoy all of the preparation for the course (!!) and we look forward to seeing you in October.
Hi all, I'm Dhiraj Nagrani. I trained as a barrister in London following which I moved back home to Gibraltar. I'm a partner in the dispute resolution team of Triay Lawyers, Gibraltar, where lawyers operate as a fused profession. I mainly do commercial, insolvency and general civil litigation, and mediation is something I'm a strong advocate for but it's very underused in our jurisdiction. I've participated in a few mediations on behalf of a party and I'm now excited to train as a mediator and hopefully make mediation more available as a form of ADR back home. Look forward to meeting everyone soon!
Hello Everyone,
I look forward to meeting you all next week. My name is Nahid Ali, I am based in the UK and it looks like I am the only one on the course without a legal background.
I recently took early retirement after working for a US energy company for 30 years. I was fortunate to work in a variety of roles and across various disciplines. So why this course? During the latter part of my career, I was often approached by employees to help resolve workplace conflicts informally and also resolve inter-departmental disputes. This piqued my curiosity in mediation so looking forward to learning more about the theory and seeing how it is applied in practice via the role plays. Safe travels to everyone.