After more than eight years at Independent Mediators and a mediation career spanning over 34 years Andrew Paton is retiring. We at Independent Mediators have felt ourselves very fortunate to benefit from Andrew’s unparalleled expertise in our field.

 

 

 

Andrew was an early adopter of mediation being accredited by ADR Net in 1990 and by CEDR in 1993. He is hanging up his mediation hat after having mediated in excess of 1,360 cases. Time for a well earned rest! Clients regularly feedback on how Andrew is totally engaged with the process and say he brings with him conspicuous energy and enthusiasm and also has a sense of humour that can be used to get past obstacles standing in the way of progress.

Andrew joined Pinsent & Co (now Pinsent Masons) in 1981 as a newly qualified solicitor at their Birmingham office and became a partner in 1986. He initially had a fairly general practice incorporating property, construction and general commercial litigation before developing an interest in professional indemnity insurance. He took over management of the Insurance Litigation Group at his firm in 1995 continuing through to 2003 when he moved to an in-house role being responsible for dealing with claims and complaints and handling all professional indemnity insurance matters. Andrew retired from Pinsent Masons in April 2016 to mediate full time. He is a former director of ADR Net Ltd; founder member of PIM (Senior Mediators), was Chairman of the Association of Midland Mediators for 12 years and served on the CEDR training faculty from 1993 to 2005. He was a co-founder of the Lamport Hall Group, an association dedicated to the advancement of high standards of practice amongst leading mediators.

Andrew has worked with countless organisations over the years informing those within them about mediation and regularly providing training sessions for solicitors and new mediators.

We will miss Andrew’s brilliant humour, energy and sage advice. We wish him a wonderful retirement and many happy days sailing, golfing, cycling and spending more time with family and friends.