John Heath: : As co-chair of the London International Disputes Week, what are your goals for
this conference in 2024 and for 2025, the next year?
Henrietta Jackson-Stops : Our goal is to be the forward thinking and leading place where
people working in dispute resolution can come and meet colleagues working in similar areas.
I think it is one of the only Dispute Weeks in the world where both mediation, arbitration and
litigation all come together.
We heard from the Lady Chief Justice this morning about the importance of
cross- fertilisation between the three methods of dispute resolution, although of course, there
are more. So we hope that people’s attendance can open their eyes to the collaborative ethos
that is at the heart of LIDW.
John Heath: : Excellent. How do you use the role of mediation? How do you see it evolving
within the international dispute and ADR system internationally?
Henrietta Jackson-Stops : It's been really interesting this morning to hear mediation
mentioned a lot more prominently in the context of this forum. Across the world, courts are
looking at better ways of resolving disputes, and mediation is often the method that is most
mentioned, although of course there are others such as early neutral evaluation, judicial
mediation, and different forms, such as MedArbMed or ArbMed, all the variations.
In this jurisdiction, I'm a director of the Civil Mediation Council, and we are looking towards
getting a Royal Charter for the CMC in a bid to further professionalize the sector. It is a
profession in its own right as opposed to being an add-on skill for a barrister or a solicitor.
There are plenty of good mediators who are also solicitors and barristers, but it's a separate
skill set.
John Heath: : With that in mind, what do you think the biggest challenges are for
international mediation going forward?
Henrietta Jackson-Stops : In some ways, it's the recognition of it as a profession. There are
also challenges in the context of developing court systems when parties come to dispute
resolution. If you're in the small claims court in many jurisdictions, it's an hour-long telephone
mediation. If their experience of that process isn't a good one, it damages mediation across
the board.
So I think we really need to distinguish between the different types of mediation, from small
claims mediation to judicial mediation to commercial mediation, which is more relevant in
this context. I also think we need to be better at explaining those differences. In this
jurisdiction, the Master of the Roles’ vision is to integrate a digital justice system. This will have
mediation in it, but what does that mediation look like? Will it be online? Will it be in person?
I think we really need to educate people on what mediation is. Today, a lot of people still say
to me, you know, how's the arbitration going? I'm like, I'm not an arbitrator [laughs]. I often
have conversations in conferences like this where people say, “the parties aren't going to
move, so there's no point getting to mediation.” And I'm like, no, no, there really is. The point
of mediation is that the parties do move very often beyond their expectations.
John Heath: : I think that's what's most surprising sometimes. It’s hard for me to guess. The
parties that I think are going to settle never do, and the parties that are so entrenched, they
end up settling usually in mediation. I understand that you have a background in public
international law. What type of skill set do you bring to your mediation practice?
Henrietta Jackson-Stops : I think in public international law, the awareness of cultural
differences between jurisdictions is really important. In disputes involving governments, the
different pressures that these types of dispute entail are really important. I do quite a lot of
public sector mediation, which is where you've got a government organization on one side.
The mediator understands that they might not be able to make a decision on the day and
may need approval by a committee or other wise. It's the same in an international mediation
and, say, investor-state dispute.
John Heath: : With your mediation practice in mind, how do you go about marketing your
services? I mean, what is the most effective way? What's the best way that you've found to
bring in clients?
Henrietta Jackson-Stops : I run a mediation business, and I have a panel of 32 mediators. It is
still very much name recognition in the market. It is people knowing an individual name. And
so it is personal marketing, you know, it is personal relationships, it's going out and meeting
people.
I often get rung up by retiring law firm partners, saying, “I want to be a mediator, how do I do
it?” It is three years of hard work, it's building your practice and your home, and it's coffee
with everybody. It takes quite a change if you are known as a really successful litigator, for
your adversarial skills or your ability to win a case, to then be perceived by your
contemporaries as somebody who can facilitate a conversation. Those two skill sets should be
together in one person anyway, because litigators should be dispute resolvers who can bring
parties together, but it is a different skill set.
John Heath: : What's the most rewarding aspect of mediating, do you think?
Henrietta Jackson-Stops : Settlement [laughs]. Bringing parties together. Being able to say to
people, you can wake up tomorrow and this dispute that you've been living with for two,
three, four years, is gone. I think that is amazingly powerful.
There's a lot of talk from the tech companies about asynchronous dispute resolution, but I
think there’s power in bringing people together to have a conversation face-to-face when
they may have been in dispute for two, three, four years and haven't actually sat down and
had a conversation. I think in the face of conversations about AI and its impact, it brings back
humanity into the room.
And I think that's really important to see the humanity coming back into the room, and
recognize the distress that this dispute has caused on both sides. To be able to achieve
settlement at the end of the day, that, I mean, I just think it's brilliant.
John Heath: : That's excellent. Yeah, I think people forget. Everybody remembers there's a
f
in ancial cost to a dispute, but they forget there's an emotional cost as well.
Henrietta Jackson-Stops : Yeah, the time and the stress.
John Heath: : Absolutely. Dispute takes away years from one's life.
So, you know, earlier I spoke with one of your colleagues, Professor Loukas, and he used a pop
culture reference, which I liked because I work in this field. There's something that my
colleague has come up with called rock star wisdom. So, as a rock star in the mediation world,
what type of rock star wisdom could you give an aspiring mediator as they're starting out?
Henrietta Jackson-Stops : You've got to come to mediation with humor, humility, and
honesty. Some mediators have big personalities, but there's a balance between being a big
enough personality to manage the mediation, but not being the ego in the room. I wonder if,
of all skill sets, mediation is one that comes down to nature. It’s trite, but the ones who
succeed are the ones who are true to themselves, because you can't pretend in the
mediation room.
I have this panel of 32 mediators, and when we bring them all together, they are all so
different, and they all bring different things to their mediations. Some of them bring all of
their personality, and some of them hold back. So I think for a mediator starting out, you've
got to find your personal niche and style. I've seen it done very effectively on LinkedIn
[laughs]. I think the parties need to trust you, and they'll only trust you if they see your true
self.
John Heath: : That's right, they can see through the facade.
Henrietta Jackson-Stops : Yeah, and they won't be open with you if they don't trust you and
you don't build rapport with them. You've got to be a very clever person to be able to be
some body else whilst also building trust and rapport with the parties in the room. So I think
it's probably, yeah, being your true self.
John Heath: : Excellent.
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