Mary has been a mediator since 1999 and is is now fully retired from legal and mediation practice, however as the founder of Focus Mediation she remains a consultant.  Mary’s book ‘Love Lose Live – Divorce is a Rollercoaster’ was published on Amazon and tells the story showing how not to get divorced. Mary has campaigned for changes to our Court-based litigation system which would embed mediation at appropriate points and benefit litigants with opportunities to settle earlier than a final hearing with all its attendant costs, delays and worries.

Pernilla qualified as a solicitor in 1998 and went on to specialise solely in family law and train as a Family Mediator with Resolution. As a result Pernilla has a wealth of skills and experience to help you reach solutions to your family disputes such as separation, divorce, financial settlements and arrangements for your children. She is passionate in her belief that when relationships breakdown mediation is often a much better alternative to costly, lengthy and high conflict court proceedings. She understands that when emotions are running high talking face to face can seem extremely daunting. However with the guidance and support of an experienced family lawyer mediator the many benefits of mediation far outweigh other alternatives.

Jane is an accredited family mediator and also a Child Inclusive Mediator. Child Inclusive Mediation enables children to have a confidential meeting with a mediator and feedback to their parents, through a mediator, any thoughts and wishes that they want their parents to know. This can help parents with their decision making. Jane has a wide range of experience of acting as a solicitor for married or co-habiting clients that are separating, especially on the financial aspects of separation and the arrangements for any children of the relationship. She represented clients through negotiations with their former partner’s solicitors and at court when in practice. So making the switch to mediation is against the background of a wealth of experience and knowledge that is relevant to her work as a mediator. She can give excellent legal information to couples, so they are able to make informed decisions about matters they must resolve.

Following gaining a First Class degree in Law at Birkbeck College, University of London, she qualified as a solicitor and specialised in Family Law, achieving the Resolution specialist accreditation in advanced financial provision and private children law. No slouch academically, Jane still saw that whilst important, the Law only takes you so far – and many family disputes are much better resolved in mediation. “In mediation emotional and practical factors and issues that really matter to people can be taken into account and they can work out what to do for themselves with help from me as a mediator, not as an advocate. It’s better for families, faster and more cost effective.” says Jane.

“Whilst some cases are best dealt with through negotiations through solicitors and may need court proceedings, it is far less than currently take this route. People should swap to mediation and out of litigation far more than they do – it can save them thousands and get it all sorted fast. Although mediation can be challenging, it has the potential to improve communication and relationships.

This not only greatly benefits any children of the relationship, but also enables the focus to be on the important decisions that need to be made on relationship breakdown, instead of on arguing. People can be much more in charge of their lives and their future.”

Mary has been a mediator since 1999 and is is now fully retired from legal and mediation practice, however as the founder of Focus Mediation she remains a consultant.  Mary has campaigned for changes to our Court-based litigation system for over 10 years, presenting a strong case at professional convferences and running workshops on the subject. She believes we should embed mediation at appropriate points in litigation and give litigants opportunities to settle earlier than a final hesring with all its attendant costs, delays and worries. She believes referral of most displutes to mediation should be embedded in court proceedings with diversion to mediation being time-tabled once joint costs reach 20% of the value of any dispute. This would help avoid costs exceeding case value. Mary ran a campaign on ‘Change.org’ to this effect, but sadly it was not successful and costs remain the biggest problem in many disputes.

An Independent Consultant and Mediator Jean specialises in the Human Resources Sector, but also deals with an enormous variety of other commercial and civil disputes. 

Jean has acted as a mediator in local and international recruitment, new business development, personnel management, relocation destination services (including spouse counselling and partner employment services), education, sales and marketing, and training. 

A Fellow of The Institute of Employment Consultants (now known as The Recruitment and Employment Confederation), Jean served three terms as elected Governor and two as Vice-President. She also served three years as elected member of the National Executive Council of Federation of Recruitment and Employment Services – Trade Body. 

Julian has 20 years’ experience in conflict resolution. His previous roles centred on development planning and construction project design and management, from small-scale to strategic, which led him to sit on Corporate Management Teams for big organisations. He now specialises as a mediator working in commercial and civil mediation, family and business hybrid mediations and dealing with a variety of issues including workplace disputes. He also offers executive and psychological coaching. 

Julian also had a voluntary role to facilitate staff-to-management relations for 600 staff and was chief negotiator, mediator and coach for individual and corporate staff issues, which were many and varied. He now helps people from board level in listed multi-nationals through to small businesses and private citizens, using either mediation alone, or his ‘blended’ conflict resolution service for deep or wide-scale issues. 

Dave’s background as a chartered surveyor and over 30 years of property development and investment work has given him very wide experience of dealing with potential and actual disputes. He sees mediation as being invaluable in resolving such disputes without incurring horrendous costs, both in management time and money.

As the owner of a property development and investment group, he is all too aware that management time is often diverted from creating value, rather than just dividing it. 

Aileen is a practising mediator and psychotherapist, with over twenty years’ experience as a corporate/commercial lawyer in private practice and industry and was formerly Company Secretary of British American Tobacco plc.

Aileen’s work as a psychotherapist, together with her strong commercial skills, make her ideally suited to facilitating the resolution of disputes between individuals and corporations. 

As a Civil and Commercial Mediator, Mark is a mature, pragmatic and capable professional with a Quantity Surveying background. Mark’s career has taken him across a varied and wide range of industry sectors. On route he has gained solid ADR experience having dealt with a wide range of issues and disputes.

Lawrence was formerly a partner in a leading London media law firm and co- founded and managed another. He has more than 20 years experience of finding solutions for clients in a broad range of situations and has been widely praised for his calm, efficient and very commercial approach. A good listener with a sympathetic and patient manner, Lawrence is passionate about mediation which he believes is better than litigation for resolving most disputes.

Clive has over 35 years’ experience as a solicitor specialising in commercial, corporate and property law in senior in-house legal roles (including 12 years working as a senior international lawyer for a global generic pharmaceuticals company) and also in private practice. Clive qualified as a civil and commercial mediator in January 2019 and is particularly comfortable to mediate disputes involving:

• business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) contracts, transactions and relationships in general;
• contracts, transactions and relationships (UK and international) relating to pharmaceuticals/life sciences, intellectual property (IP), information technology (IT) and telecoms (e.g. license, supply, manufacturing, distribution, services, procurement contracts and transactions);
• corporate law contracts, transactions and relationships, including business acquisitions, disposals, collaborations and joint ventures;
• commercial and residential property, planning, construction and construction-related disputes with professionals (e.g. architects and surveyors), ownership and use rights, boundary disputes, easements and covenants, landlord and tenant issues.

In addition to his qualifications as a civil and commercial mediator and solicitor, Clive has an MBA degree in Business Administration and a Diploma in Telecommunications Law.

Gill has extensive people management experience and particular skills in facilitation. She is able to quickly identify the key issues, using her calm, professional approach to questioning and listening, developed over many years in HR. Gill has a straightforward, open and honest approach, which allows her to build trust with the parties whilst maintaining her independence.

Gill has over 20 years’ experience in HR, Coaching and Change Management with blue chip companies, including 4 years’ work overseas. Formerly an HR Manager for 8 years with BT, the HR Development Director for AT&T-Unisource in The Netherlands and a Principal Consultant in the Change Management Practice at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Gill has run her own HR and Change Management consultancy, People & Change, for over 9 years. 

Jonathan Lux has over 33 years’ experience behind him as a solicitor and partner at leading international commercial law firm Ince & Co, and 15 as a Mediator in commercial law; he acts as a Mediator and Arbitrator. He is well placed to take on Mediation and Arbitration cases that require a highly skilled and personal approach. Jonathan has the ability to grasp the key issues of a case quickly.

He has an extensive and impressive professional legal background and became a CEDR accredited mediator in 2001. He was trained by and has worked alongside the late David Richbell and several other established mediators. MacDonald runs an independent consultancy and has held and serves on various advisory boards and panels including the CAB. His specialist areas include Contract and Construction disputes.

• Member (MCIArb) Reg. 023117
• The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators March 2006
• Member, Mediation Steering Group for Global Professional Standards 2007-2008
• CEDR Accredited Mediator
• The Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, CEDR January 2001 
• Has obtained the Master of Laws, LL.M., in Advanced Legal Practice (Commercial Litigation) in 2000 from De Montfort University, Leicester England.

Having qualified as a solicitor in 2014, she routinely deals with  complex contested probate matters including with an international element.  As a solicitor, Nasreen specialises in all areas of Private Client and Family Matters.

Nasreen is an accredited civil and commercial mediator registered with CMC.  She adopts a focused and simple approach in mediation, drawing on her considerable experience in Wills, Probate and Family matters as a solicitor.

Her approach to mediation is to identify the key issues swiftly whilst being present to the concerns of the parties with view to highlighting the common grounds.  Nasreen has the ability to listen attentively.  She understands the areas of conflict instantly and courteously brings them to the attention of the parties.  As a mediator she facilitates the parties in arriving at a solution to their problems without the need to resort to Court.

Nasreen has recently completed a Leadership training programme which has further enhanced her communication skills and the ability to lead a mediation authoritatively whilst maintaining a humane connection with all the parties. 

Nasreen previously worked in Dubai, predominantly dealing with estate planning for high net worth clients.

Nasreen is proficient in communicating in Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi.