AI Magazine Issue 12 2018

Acquisition International - Issue 12 2018 41 We catch up with Mary Walker, of 9 Wentworth Chambers, as she is awarded the prestigious accolade of Most Influential Woman in Mediation – Australia in the 2018 Global Excellence Awards. hat makes 9 Wentworth Chambers stand out from the crowd is its professional approach and progressive client focus to ensure the provision of legal services of the highest quality, each and every time. There are 24 barristers who make up 9 Wentworth Chambers who accept briefs from solicitors and directly from in-house legal counsel. Members act as advocates, advisers, mediators, arbitrators and expert determiners. One such barrister is Mary Walker. Members of chambers practice throughout Australia and internationally in awide range of areas and appear in courts, tribunals, commissions of inquiry, and international arbitrations. They are regularly retained for their technical expertise, sound knowledge of the law, strategic advice and independent judgment. The chambers also recognise the importance of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), particularly mediation. Barristers in 9 Wentworth Chambers are accredited mediators under the National Mediation Accreditation Scheme, accredited as advanced mediators by LEADR/IAMA and accredited internationally by the International Mediation Institute. Admitted to the Bar in 1988, Mary Walker has been at the forefront of ADR in Australia for the last 28 years and mediated more than 4,000 matters. During this period, as a member of an independent Bar, Mary has arbitrated, mediated, negotiated, facilitated multi-party, environmental and community disputes, designed dispute resolution systems and provided expert appraisal and ombudsman services in respect to thousands of disputes referred by solicitors, industry and government bodies and corporations both domestic and international. Mary is a member of many mediation panels including the Supreme Court of NSW and the Singapore International Mediation Centre Panel and mediates for the Supreme Court of The Australian Capital Territory. In the first intake, Mary was certified as an Investor State Mediator by CEDR, London in 2017. She is a member of the Supreme Court of New South Wales ADR Committee, a member of the International Mediation Institute Standards Commission and International Mediation Institute Independent Standards Commission Quality Group amongst other bodies. Mary has also lectured and published extensively in ADR and mediation for example, she wrote the Contact: Mary Walker Company: 9 Wentworth Chambers Address: Level 9, 180 Phillip Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia Telephone: 02 8815 9250 Web Address: www.ninewentworth.com.au A Progressive Approach W 1808AI04 original Chapter in the Laws of Australia on Expert Determination and the ADR Chapter in the Bar Association of NSW, Centenary Essays, No Mere Mouthpiece. Sponsored by Harvard University to teach mediation with Professor Frank Sander in 1995, and appointed a Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at Bond University in 2007, Mary acted as a lecturer in Commercial Mediation in the Masters of Law Degree at the University of Sydney (2009), in Mass Torts and Dispute System Design at Stanford University in the United States (2012) and lectured in dispute resolution as a member of the Law Faculty of the University of Technology (2014-2015). She has also been a guest lecturer in ADR at many universities, for example, Mary was a guest lecturer in the Mediation of Multi-party, Complex and Cross Border Disputes at Tilburg University in The Netherlands (2017). Mary is currently Chair of the College of Law Dispute Resolution Academic Advisory Committee (2015- 2018) and was previously Chair of the Law Council of Australia (LCA) Expert Standing Committee on ADR (2004 – 2013), Chair of the LCA International Law Section (ILS) ADR Committee (2013-2016) and is currently Chair of the LCA Federal Litigation and Dispute Resolution Section ADR Committee (2013-2018), Co-Chair of the LCA ILS International Arbitration Committee (2016 -2018) and a member of the LCA ILS Executive (2017-2018). Mary was invited by The Hague Institute for Global Justice to join an expert meeting on resolving complex disputes, cross border disputes and the case management of mass disputes (November 2012). She is also a member of the NSW Bar Council (2011-2018) and a recipient of an Australian Women Leadership Scholarship (2015). Mary is internationally accredited as a Mediator and Mediator Advocate by the International Mediation Institute. Awarded the Inaugural Australian Mediator of the Year Award in 2016 by the Australian Disputes Centre, Mary was again awarded Mediator of the Year in 2017 and was a Finalist in the category of ADR Practitioner of the Year 2017. She is also noted in the Inaugural Doyles Mediator List as a Leading Mediator 2018 and is an NBN Panel Arbitrator, approved by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) in 2016, as well as a Fellow of the Australian Dispute Resolution Association, awarded 2017. Mary is currently Co-President of The Australian Dispute Resolution Association with Professor Laurence Boulle (2017-2018) and Co-Vice Chair of The International Bar Association Mediation Committee with Mr Karim Jamil Nassif (2018).