David is one of the UK’s ‘senior’ mediators, having mediated commercial cases since 1992 and one of only a handful of full-time non-lawyer mediators. Originally a specialist in construction and engineering, his vast experience means that he has more appointments outside of property and construction. He ran his own chartered surveying practice for 18 years. David’s experience is even more significant when one considers his key skills in multi-party mediations, (the largest number of parties David has mediated is 13) and cases which are highly complex, not least due to value (up to £650 million) but also because of high emotion, volume of documents, complexity of details and commercial imperatives.
Full-time mediator since 1996, David is a registered CEDR mediator and Fellow of the CIArb. With many well-known publications to his name, he recently won the CEDR Award for Excellence in ADR 2008 (Best Publication) for his book, ‘Mediation of Construction Disputes’ (Blackwells).
David has mediated over 500 cases and is one of the few commercial mediators experienced in co-mediation – another of his specialist areas. He has an established pairing with fellow Chambers member, Beverly-Ann Rogers. A high proportion of David’s mediations have an international element with at least one party being non UK. International mediations have sent David to Dubai, Bermuda, Italy, Bangladesh, Jersey and Isle of Man to name but a few. He has a personal background working in multi-racial communities and has built a well-deserved reputation in successfully mediating cases involving parties of different ethnic origins, both business related and within faith communities.
David is a committed advocate of facilitative mediation and his style is relaxed and informal. Noted for his extreme patience and tenacity, David is an expert at reality testing and challenging parties’ positions. He is gifted in getting clients to focus on what matters. David has extensive experience in the following areas:
