Open Forum

•  I have been  a mediator in private practice for 30 years based in the Adelaide Hills. I started my mediation career in November 1991 at Bond Uni with Laurence Boulle, John Wade and Pat Cavanagh. A great introduction.
•  My career highlights include selling my legal practice in 1996 to jump into mediation full-time. A risk at the time but helped by developing mediation courses at Southern Cross Uni and the University of Queensland and an internship at Relationships Australia, Queensland. This all helped with the transition.
• While privately referred mediations were constant I had the space to branch into allied  fields such as arbitrating for the New South Wales Workers Compensation Commission for eight years and three years as a merits reviewer for the Minister for Immigration for offshore arrivals known as boat people. Again this helped broaden my experience and lead to work in such areas as mediating between victims of abuse and religious institutions and the Australian Defence Force as well as work in Timor-Leste for NGOs.
• It was all a far cry from my work as a sole practitioner lawyer in a country town in northern New South Wales. A mediation career opens many interesting doors.
• For the last decade I have worked with colleagues Margaret Ross and Barbara Wilson running eight annual mediation retreats in Tuscany, Italy.  This has been a great highlight particularly spending quality time with experienced mediators from around the world. It has also led to training opportunities in Denmark and France. It just highlights that mediation is a truly international occupation with its skills being of increased value in this modern, complex and integrated commercial and social world.

 Career Advice.

• My career advice is to maintain a broad focus of where you would like to head with your mediation career and, in the words of complexity scientist Stuart Kauffman, look for what is 'adjacent possible' to where you are now that moves you in the general direction of where you want to go. Avoid being too focused. You can end up missing something important. You will be amazed at what pops up in front of you as you take each new step.
• The other thing to remember is that mediation is a human interaction.  Being in touch with your own humanity in the mediation session is key.

 What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

• My favourite way to unplug particularly after a hard mediation is to sit quietly in a coffee shop and watch the world go by with the sense that somehow and for some strange reason we are all in this crazy world together. Digging in the garden also helps.

• Do you, as a mediator, try to keep a possible solution in mind to help guide you through the session or are you okay with just sitting in the interaction of the moment allowing something new and unexpected to emerge to take you to the next step?