Marcus is an associate member of Quadrant Chambers. He was a practising solicitor and partner in a leading dispute resolution practice in the city of London. He acted for commercial clients for over 30 years and retired in 2019. He has been acting as a mediator since 2021. 

From 2014 to 2019 Marcus was his firm’s managing partner. He was heavily involved in the management of his firm for over 20 years and has wide experience in dealing with firm and partner management, professional negligence, IT and employment matters. 

While in practise, Marcus was a litigator, representing clients both in the UK and abroad. He has extensive experience of dealing with commercial disputes in the English High Court, arbitration and supervising litigation in many jurisdictions mainly in the commodities, insurance and maritime sectors as well general commercial litigation.

Marcus is a mediation panel member of CEDR (The Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution) and an associate member of Quadrant Chambers. He was the president of the UK Chamber of Shipping in 2014. Between 1980 and 1987 he was employed in the maritime insurance industry as a lawyer in two P&I clubs in London. 

In this role he acquired extensive experience as a client of professional services firms. He is thus well placed to understand the expectations of parties when engaged in litigation as regards the performance they expect from their lawyers. 

In his role as a client and then a solicitor Marcus is very experienced in dealing with barristers as well as experts, both as part of his team, as well as when they are part of the opponents group.

Marcus’s clients ranged from large corporations to small businesses. He understands the expectations of clients about legal costs, as well as the demands litigation places on them while seeking to run their business. With this background as a mediator, Marcus can speak to clients about the benefits of resolving their disputes by mediation thereby avoiding litigation and the demands it makes on any business both big and small in terms of management time and cost.

Marcus completed his CEDR training in 2014. He has been acting as a commercial mediator since 2021. He has mediated a wide variety of disputes largely in the commodities, maritime and insurances sectors.
 

Marcus has also undertaken a large number of early intervention mediations. Early intervention mediations often involve disputes which are in their early stages, sometimes no written arguments (pleadings) have been exchanged, evidence is to still to be collected and the issues and sums in dispute have not been fully developed. The parties seek early mediation where there is urgency and or to avoid the costs of a long drawn out dispute. 

Marcus’ experience can be utilised to assist parties in early intervention mediations to map out a process to address the issues in dispute and assist the parties to resolve the problem. This may sometimes involve seeking expert advice, obtaining evidence on a particular aspect of the matter or asking the parties to comment on an issue which is dividing them. With his industry background knowledge, Marcus is able to assist the parties in relation to these mediations. He is also ready to undertake the work at short notice and at times which suit the parties.

Marcus is very experienced in his speciality areas, is a keen listener, forthright and focused, proactive about solutions and will challenge the parties to explain their positions by testing their arguments and where appropriate also challenging them. He is highly motivated to help the parties and doesn’t give up easily. His background as a litigator and then law firm management means that he is used to dealing with conflicting allegations and competing demands.

He’s not intimidated and is capable of firmly but politely resisting pressure and aggressive behaviour. He is very focussed on helping the parties to find solutions to their disputes and will urge them to focus on this as soon as possible. He will, where necessary, also put forward ideas to help the parties to resolve the matter. 

With his legal and practise background he is able to identify matters where the parties arguments and claims are unsubstantiated and lacking evidence. He will encourage the parties to produce further evidence as and when appropriate, but will equally suggest to the parties that certain aspects of their case is abandoned for the purpose of the mediation so that the parties can focus only on what is necessary to enable the matter to be resolved. 

Marcus mediates both on line and in person and considers the growth in on line mediation means that many more disputes are capable of being mediated cost effectively, without the need for travel and long attendances. “On line” enables the mediation (where the parties wish) to be broken up into a series of meetings thereby freeing up the parties to attend to their day jobs as well. In person mediations are still vital for larger cases and matters where the parties wish to attend  and devote all their time to resolving the matter in course of a day. 
 
With over 30 years of experience in all aspect of international trade litigation Marcus has very wide experience.  

The following is a brief list of matters in which Marcus has been involved either as a litigator or mediator.