4-5 Gray's Inn Square

Stephen Barker is an independent commercial mediator. He is a CMC Registered Mediator. Stephen was trained and accredited by CEDR in 2001 and has regularly been appointed as mediator ever since.

Prior to his call to the Bar in 2017, Stephen worked in private practice as a Solicitor.  On transferring to become a barrister, he became a tenant at 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square.

When he was admitted as a Solicitor in 1989, Stephen joined Eversheds, one of the leading international law firms and became an equity partner in 1999.  He was head of the Commercial Litigation team at Eversheds’ Birmingham office, until he moved on in 2006 to join US law firm Reed Smith as a partner in their Commercial Disputes Group.  Later Stephen was part of the management team of Reed Smith’s Birmingham off-shoot, Hill Hofstetter, now FieldFisher.  He set up Barker Commercial Law, to look after the commercial legal needs of a select group of clients, including an automotive systems manufacturer and one of the world’s leading cyber-security software developers, both global listed businesses.

During his legal practice career, Stephen has been fortunate to gain fantastic experience representing many household name clients in major business disputes, sometimes with values in the hundreds of millions.  As a Solicitor Advocate, Stephen exercised Higher Rights of Audience on numerous contested applications in the Chancery and the Mercantile Court.  In 1998, he was one of the very first Solicitor Advocates to appear as a junior in the Court of Appeal (in R v. Chief Constable of North Wales Police ex.p. AB & CD [1998] EWCA Civ 486).