Wimbledon Resident Gets CBE In Birthday Honours
"Mediation guru" honoured for his services
Wimbledon resident Dr Karl Mackie has been awarded the CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for services to mediation.
Dr Mackie is Chief Executive of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) and has been with the organisation since it was founded in 1990.
A barrister and psychologist by trade, Dr Mackie has worked closely with governments, courts and lawyers in the UK and Europe, encouraging the view of using mediation as a method of resolving disputes.
Under his direction, CEDR has dealt with more than 16,000 dispute referrals and trained more than 3,000 mediators in the UK and more than 2,000 overseas. CEDR calculates that in the UK alone commercial mediation currently saves the economy over £1.4 billion a year.
In the past year alone the cases he has mediated include a dispute over the European City of Culture, conflict with more than 100 homeowners in a 'new town', a trade union pay dispute, high value NHS purchasing dispute, the first ever international mediation with Romania, the sacking of the boss of a major high street name and other commercial conflicts worth billions of pounds.
Dr Mackie is also appointed by other dispute resolution bodies in the UK and Internationally, such as ACAS, where he has been an arbitrator for 30 years.
Regularly described as the “mediation guru” in publications ranging from The Times to The Lawyer, he is frequently referred to as one of the most influential negotiators in the UK. He has also been described as "the thinking lawyer's Sean Connery".
June 14, 2010