On Wednesday 28 March, Womble Bond Dickinson hosted our first Dispute Resolution conference at The British Library in London. Entitled "Disrupting Disputes", attendees were able to listen, and take part in the interactive panel discussion on the future of the dispute resolution process.
The event was expertly moderated by legal commentator, Joshua Rozenberg. The panel featured Sir Robert Akenhead, High Court Judge in the Technology and Construction Court; Dan Kayne, General Counsel (Routes) at Network Rail; Derrick Logan, Senior Solutions Architect from Epiq; Ellen M. Gregg, Partner at Womble Bond Dickinson (US) and; Richard Collins Partner at Womble Bond Dickinson (UK).
Of particular interest to the audience was Dan Kayne's critical analysis of how clients can assist the dispute process. He also stressed the importance of how each stakeholder should look at what they are doing, with an overall focus on collaboration.
The conference was aided by the use of an interactive application, Sli.do, which enabled the audience to engage with the panel discussion through polls, and feed into the Q&A session using their mobile devices. Ben Rigby, the editor of CDR, attended the event and will be providing a full write up of the content covered which will be available soon.
Simon Lewis, Partner in the Construction and Engineering team, commented: "The event was a great success. It focussed on how the rapid increase in the use of technology and improvements in cost efficiency will shape dispute resolution in the future. The panel also discussed what outcomes users of dispute resolution mechanisms want from the process and how that can be achieved. This was our first year running the Disrupting Disputes Conference and it is one we will certainly run again in the future