Experience & CV
Work Experience
I began my career working primarily in criminal law, family law and general insurance litigation. After a brief career hiatus - when I resigned to travel the world - I returned to my regionally based firm.
I became an accredited specialist in personal injury law in 1994 (only the second year in which accreditation was available). My practice gradually developed to be largely a mix of personal injury plaintiff claims and general commercial litigation such as shareholder and contract disputes; together with wills and estates claims.
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From the late 1990s, I was appointed to the panel of a number of professional indemnity insurers, covering professions such as solicitors, accountants, and real estate agents. My professional indemnity work, especially claims against solicitors, required me to become familiar with many areas of law, as claims arose from a wide range of circumstances.
I also practiced extensively in employment and workplace law including workplace disputes and unfair dismissals, and was invited to lecture to law students at the University of Newcastle for a number of years from the early 1990s, focusing on unfair dismissal law. I continued to lecture law students on professional risk issues until 2020. I appeared as solicitor advocate in many civil cases as well as at a number of ICAC investigations; and at the ‘Special Commission of Inquiry into...certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle’.
Mediation Experience
In the course of my legal career I participated in well over 100 mediations or facilitated conferences, in disputes arising in fields as varied as professional indemnity claims, wills disputes, general commercial disputes and workplace matters.
Consequently, I have been exposed to a wide range of approaches to disputes and to attempts to resolve them. I believe I have gained a good understanding of the many underlying motivations or ‘drivers’ that influence the approaches of parties in disputes, as well as the ‘black letter’ legal issues. I have had to manage those drivers both in dealing with my own clients and in dealing with opponents and/or their representatives. I am well placed, therefore, to mediate commercial and other disputes and to assist the disputing parties try to find an acceptable outcome to their disputes.