Mediation Experience ...

John Kendall is an experienced mediator, with a very thorough background in dispute resolution. He was accredited and registered with CEDR in 1995 and is a member of the Court of Appeal Mediators Panel since 2003. He has long been committed to mediation and other ADR processes which allow people to resolve their disputes without lengthy, time-consuming litigation.

A graduate of New College, Oxford, John qualified as a solicitor in 1976. He gained a diploma in construction law and arbitration at King’s College London in 1991. John was from 1977 a solicitor and, from 1985, a partner at Allen & Overy in London, and from 1994 to 1997 managing partner of the litigation department and a member of the firm’s board. At Allen & Overy he gained first class experience of commercial dispute resolution at all levels of courts and tribunals, both domestic and international, and represented parties in negotiation and mediation. In some of the disputes, but not all, there were very large sums of money at stake.

Since 1999 John has worked independently and has conducted more than 60 mediations. He takes a practical approach, and sees the role of the mediator as mainly that of improving communication between the parties. As an experienced litigation solicitor he is well placed to warn parties of the risks and uncertainties of the court process. John knows the importance of keeping working towards a settlement, and of avoiding being sidetracked, particularly where time is limited.

John has particular experience in:

• Professional negligence claims against accountants, solicitors and architects
• Company and partnership disputes
• Property disputes
• Construction disputes

Other ADR work ...

Alongside his mediation work, John has pioneered the study of expert determination, and has written the only textbook on the subject, now in its third edition. One reviewer described Expert Determination as “quite simply, superb…a deep and thoughtful analysis with an easy to read everyday style.” John lectures on the subject to professional and academic gatherings. He co-edited the 21st edition of Russell on Arbitration and has experience of acting as an arbitrator, appointed by the ICC and the LCIA. John has had articles on commercial dispute resolution published in a wide variety of periodicals, including the Law Quarterly Review, the Solicitors Journal, Arbitration International, The Times and The Guardian, and the French financial magazine La Revue du Financier. John is a fluent French speaker.

John now lives in Presteigne in the Welsh Marches. In that community, he is chairman of the governing body of John Beddoes School, and chairman of the internationally acclaimed Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts; and he has played a leading role in a very successful twinning arrangement between Presteigne and the town of Ligné, near Nantes.

Comments on John’s qualities as a mediator include:

“able to create the perfect environment for bringing parties together”

“incisive and authoritative”

“he politely refused to carry legal argument back and forth between the parties, which shifted the focus from the legal rights and wrongs to realistic expectations of settlement”

Examples of disputes settled in John’s mediations include:

• Solicitor’s professional negligence in respect of a commercial lease
• Rival claims between shareholders in a travel company
• A claim against a lawfirm by the widow of a former partner
• Rights of access to freehold property
• A dispute between a bank and a recruitment agency
• Credit card transactions
• Goods damaged in storage

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