Lawrence Kershen

Lawrence is recognised as one of the UK’s most experienced mediators and was ranked by Who’s Who Legal in 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019 as one of the world’s leading commercial mediators.  He has been a CEDR accredited mediator for nearly 20 years, and now works exclusively in mediation and training mediation skills.   Lawrence practised as a barrister for more than 30 years in a broad range of civil, commercial and complex criminal cases, and sat as a Recorder of the Crown Court; his understanding of civil and commercial litigation is second to none.  He blends experience of many years mediating, familiarity with litigation, and the practical application of communication skills.

Lawrence’s mediation experience includes commercial contracts, banking and financial services, construction, defamation, engineering, inheritance, insurance, intellectual property, manufacturing, media, partnership, police, professional negligence, property, shareholdings and voluntary organisations.  He is also an experienced workplace and employment mediator.  Lawrence has experience in cross-cultural mediations, e.g. working with parties from Denmark/Norway (oil industry); Italy/India (manufacturing); US/ Denmark (pharmaceuticals); Israel/Ireland (charity); Switzerland/Iran (property).

He has developed and run training courses in mediation and negotiation in the UK and abroad for a number of years, most recently for judges in Egypt and Morocco. He aims to adapt the mediation process to the specific needs of the parties, drawing on his experience as a trainer in communication skills such as NLP and Non-violent Communication.

Given the effectiveness of dialogue in resolving conflict and making better relations, Lawrence qualified as a restorative facilitator. He has been actively involved in the development of Restorative Justice in the UK, both in the criminal field and in schools and organisations. From 2003-12 Lawrence was a Board member and latterly Chair of the Restorative Justice Council, and is trained as a restorative facilitator.  He has also acted as observer for Amnesty International in trials in the Gambia, Israel and Grenada, and in 1991 mediated between the Government of Grenada and 14 death row prisoners.

To support the international work of Search for Common Ground in conflict transformation and peace-building he helped establish Search for Common Ground in the UK in 2007. He was its Chair until 2012 and remains a Board member. In 2007 he was honoured to be appointed Chief Pa Kumrabai of Yoni Bana Chiefdom in Sierra Leone.

He is a certified trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and is also accredited as a trainer of Nonviolent Communication, the work of Dr Marshall Rosenberg.

Lawrence speaks French and conversational Italian.