Stephen Ruttle

I have mediated full time from Brick Court Chambers for the last 23 years; and part-time with my QC commercial legal practice for 5 years before that. I have now mediated well over 2000 disputes of almost every legal type (save for divorce) with sums involved in individual cases now frequently in the hundreds of millions and above. I have mediated many disputes of the highest complexity, sensitivity and publicity; for corporates, for ultra high net worth individuals and families and for Governments or Government Departments I am a strong believer in co-mediation. I set up and ran for nearly 20 years a community mediation charity, WMS, which was recently awarded a Kings Award for Voluntary Service. I do not regard my mediation style as being either facilitative or evaluative; unhelpful labels which I think mask the mediators real task, which is to help the parties reach a wise conclusion. If, as part of this process, it is useful to provide a "steer" on the merits then I am very happy to do so; alive I hope always to the critical requirement (perhaps the single highest priority) to retain trust and rapport with clients. Some years ago Lord Hoffman, after shadowing me, observed that "You played Hamlet in the morning, Macbeth in the afternoon and Richard 111 in the evening!". My primary motivation as a mediator derives from my Christian faith tradition.