From Strategy to Impact: The CMC’s Mid-Year Progress

The first half of 2025 has been a very busy one for the CMC Board.

One area of focus for us in the first half of this year has been collaboration with other bodies.

A significant piece of work that we have begun is collaboration with bodies like the LCIA, CEDR, the Civil Justice Council, the judiciary and others, to see whether we can produce recommendations on how mediation, arbitration and litigation might work together. This followed speeches by the Lady Chief Justice at LIDW last year and at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law’s President’s Circle lecture on Mediation after the Singapore Convention, which called on bodies like the CMC to work with others for the purpose of producing recommendations to enhance how arbitration, mediation and litigation might work together. We had initial conversations as to what we might do with the CJC, CEDR, the LCIA and others who were named in the speeches, as well as further initial conversations with other bodies such as the judiciary, the Law Society,  Ciarb and others with an interest in this area. We are currently working on getting the London Dispute Resolution Committee established and we look forward to updating you on that in the second half of the year. We had a very successful event at LIDW with a panel discussing what a LDRC could productively do. We were pleased to share the stage with Marie Sparkes, head of marketing and business development at the LCIA, Graham Massie, COO of CEDR, Joe Tirado, an arbitrator, mediator and conciliator with vast international experience and Grace Cheng, barrister, arbitrator and adjudicator at 39 Essex Chambers admitted in a number of jurisdictions.

We were delighted to attend the Family Mediation Council’s launch event for Family Mediation week. We also had the pleasure of meeting with Fair Hearing, to discuss opportunities to work together.

Deputy Chair, Nicolas Fournier and I also attended a discussion with the CNM to share experience of mediation in our respective jurisdictions.

We continue to develop our relationship with our colleagues at the IMI. The CMC shared a platform with IMI at an event hosted by CEDR on Increasing Development of Mediation: “What’s the role of IMI?” It was fascinating to hear about IMI’s future direction from Co-Chairs Tat Lim and Leonardo D’Urso, and IMI and CMC Board member Andy Rogers, and from CEO Ivana Ninčić Österle, and to share what the CMC is doing and to see where there might be synergies. Enabling mediator mobility for our mediators is something we want to focus on in this period.

Having attended the preliminary discussions on the Edinburgh Declaration, where I was glad to have feedback from our members that they thought it an initiative worth supporting, I have been working Scottish Mediation and Mediators Institute of Ireland to see what we as organisations can do to support the Edinburgh Declaration.

We’ve also been in conversation with the College of Mediators on areas where we might be able to work together, and with other organisations, such as Mediation Hertfordshire, Quakers in Britain, Wandsworth Mediation, and Calm Mediation.

Events

CMC Deputy Chair Nicolas Fournier and Deputy CEO Victoria Harris travelled to Angers, France, to speak at the 3rd International Congress for All Mediations. They joined global experts to discuss the role of trust in mediation, the importance of high-quality training, and how mediation is being embedded in education across different countries. With over 600 delegates in attendance, the event highlighted the power of international collaboration in shaping the future of dispute resolution. Read about the event here.

Hetti Jackson-Stops was one of the Co-Chairs for LIDW and there was an impressive range of mediation events at this year’s LIDW, no doubt down to her efforts. You can find a summary of mediation events here and a piece on the CMC’s participation in LIDW here. Several of our members hosted events, including Independent Mediators, IPOS and CEDR.

The CMC co-hosted two of those events – the one mentioned already in relation to the London Dispute Resolution Committee and another co-hosted in person and hybrid with CEDR and 39 Essex Chambers on Settlement. We were pleased to be joined by Mr Justice Waksman, head of the Technology and Construction Court, who shared judicial practice on encouraging parties to use ADR and on settlement rates in his court, as well as Sarah Ellington, Watson Farley & Williams and Wolf von Kumberg who shared fascinating insights from their respective practices on settlement, and we were chaired by Andy Rogers.

We’ve also been involved with a number of events advocating for the use of mediation in specialist areas. Hetti Jackson-Stops spoke at a well attended event, ‘Mediation Strategy: Tales from the Front Line (War Stories) and the Future Role of Women’.

In January, I spoke about mediation at the Sports Stadia and Construction event with Law in Sport, Walker Morris and Gowlings. I also spoke about the benefits of tax mediation at a joint event with CEDR and HMRC on tax ADR, alongside Fiona McRobert, head of HMRC’s ADR service, Peter Nias, barrister and mediator at Pump Court Tax Chambers and Graham Massie, CEDR. The Vis Moot Annual Lecture included a section from me on the significance of Churchill. I also spoke at the Commercial Litigation Association’s conference and the 39 Essex Chambers Regional Construction Conference.

Terry Renouf spoke at a CEDR Masterclass on the Art of the Apology, alongside other CEDR mediators.

Previous Chair, Sir David Foskett, launched the 10th edition of Foskett on Compromise, with Sir David sharing his comments on this important book, and a Question Time style discussion between him and a brilliant panel of contributors Marion Smith KC, Brie Stevens-Hoare KC, Tom Montagu-Smith KC which I was pleased to compere. Thomson Reuters have kindly offered a discount on the book (and other resources) to CMC members, which you will find in the Members Area.

We launched our Mediation in Session series, the first of which was run by Dan Mortimer who delivered a practical session on developing a mediation practice. He has kindly offered a discount following that session, which can be found in the members’ area. The second of the Mediation in Session series was CEO Paul Adams, Deputy CEO Victoria Harris and me presenting the CMC’s new Strategy. Read the strategy document and watch a video of the launch here.

We also spoke at a number of podcasts – I was delighted to join a lively and expertly curated discussion on the Young Mediators Group. I strongly recommend their newsletter. Adam Gersch invited me to join him on his podcast, Mediation Matters, where we discussed a number of hot topics, including our views that it is time for the terminology around mediation to change, and that mediation is a profession of its own.

Government Liaison Work

In government liaison work, we worked with a working group headed by Asplin LJ on standard orders for mediation following Churchill, and guidance to accompany them. We also met with the Ministry of Justice to discuss our forthcoming strategy, and with 3 different Members of Parliament on topics across the range of our areas of activity.

Resources

In addition to the new discounts referred to above, Finance Director Terry Renouf discussed with BAILII (the free resource of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute) the possibility of having a section dedicated to mediation related case law, which we are delighted to say they decided to do, compiled by Tony Allen from his excellent book.

The Board has also written in external publications. Hetti Jackson-Stops had a piece in the Law Gazette on ‘Civil Justice: A Holistic Approach to Dispute Resolution’.

I wrote a piece for Counsel Magazine, ‘Churchill, Mediation and the Bar’, focused on how barristers can best help their clients in mediation.

Academic

We have also been deepening our work with mediation in the academic world. Victoria Harris was appointed to the Board of the Journal of Mediation Theory and Practice. We have also been working on developing a new event for the mediation community, an annual academic lecture, which we hope to host at a different academic institution each year. We have had a warm reception for this from the academic community, and if you would like to know more about our plans in this area we would be delighted to hear from you. Please save the date of 10^th December for the inaugural lecture, which will be in-person in London.

We were pleased to contribute to the University of Strathclyde’s conference, in which Victoria Harris chaired a discussion with me and Joanna Gosling on our respective, unconventional paths to mediation.

The DDRS graduation ceremony took place in March and I was pleased to deliver a keynote address, where I focused on the benefits of tech and AI in mediation in making us more efficient, while noting that mediation is a human skill and mediators will never be replaceable. Lord Neuberger’s keynote shared his observations on the essential skills of a mediator.

We were lucky enough to be kindly invited to a number of events; with thanks to the Worshipful Company of Arbitrators for inviting us to the Dispute Resolution Luncheon, to Carolyn Jones for inviting me to attend the Worshipful Company of Arbitrators’ lecture by Lord Neuberger, to Hetti Jackson-Stops for inviting me to the LIDW Co-Chairs’ dinner. The legal team which represented the CMC, CEDR and Ciarb were nominated for an award at the Lexis Nexis Legal Awards in the category of case of the year. We didn’t return with an award, but it was wonderful to share a meal with counsel and solicitors involved for various parties in the case, including ours, the Bar Council, and the SHLA.

Coming up

The activities above are just those of our Board members. Our Working Groups, which are powerhouses of activity, have been fully engaged in the past six months, and we have been spotlighting their work on the CMC Blog. We are also delighted with the reception and feedback from the Mediator Launchpad which is run entirely by brilliant volunteers, whose expertise and commitment we are grateful for.

Our Mediation Standards Board is now established, and will be busy with a program of work to move a number of projects forward in the coming months.

Following the launch of our strategy, you can expect a number of calls for volunteers in the next few months and over the period of the strategy. Please keep an eye out for those opportunities.

We’re expecting a busy second half of the year. There are two podcasts which will be released over the summer, our Annual Conference in November which will be online, with in person networking drinks, and our inaugural Annual Academic Lecture to name just a few.

Please do get in touch if you have any questions.