Ronald Bradbeer – A Tribute
CEDR is very saddened to report the death of the mediator and trainer Ronald Bradbeer, who up until 2019 was an active member of CEDR’s faculty and panel.
Ronald was an early pioneer of mediation and well known for his role in promoting mediation, particularly in his native North East England. In 2006 he wrote, “Anyone can litigate, anyone can lose friends… …but not everyone wants to… … Litigation may deliver results – mediation delivers deals.”
After graduating in law at Cambridge, he joined the firm, Wilkinson Maughan, becoming Managing Partner, then Senior Partner of the firm and then, after a merger, joint regional Senior Partner in Eversheds LLP in 1997.
In 1993, Ronald was amongst the first generation of mediators to be trained and accredited by CEDR.
He was appointed to the CEDR Training Faculty in 1998. In 2001, he decided to concentrate solely on mediation and, whilst remaining in Eversheds, he assumed the role of head of ADR throughout the firm’s network of offices around the world, running a litigation and mediation practice in parallel.
He had responsibility for training the in-house lawyers in Eversheds in all their offices on the best practice in mediation with clients. This combination of roles with Eversheds and CEDR took him to many parts of the world, including the UK, Europe, Turkey, Nigeria, Syria, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and China.
As a lawyer of 40 years, he built long-standing relations with clients in shipbuilding and ship repairing. Those clients included a major warship builder and ship repair yards based on the River Tyne. Through this, and the work done for a large engineering conglomerate, Ronald was involved in various shipping and marine disputes.
He also developed a reputation for his work in clinical negligence, acting for a wide selection of health bodies around the UK. Ronald’s lifelong approach was to help clients to resolve disputes through effective negotiation, which played a large part in his long-term client retention.
Ronald successfully mediated a wide range of disputes reflecting his extensive experience developed during his long and varied legal career. Apart from his mediation practice, he lectured in ADR around the world and trained judges in ADR practice as well as training law firms on how to use mediation effectively.
Speaking of the news Karl Mackie, Founder President of CEDR said, “Ronald played a valuable role in the development of Mediation both in the UK and internationally. Having an advocate for Mediation in a national law firm in the early 1990s was extremely influential and then having him work closely with us subsequently was a privilege.”
James South, Chief Executive of CEDR, said, “Ronald was a true friend and supporter of CEDR and we are very saddened by his loss. Ronald had a great personality and brought his personal style to all of his work. We are sustained by our many positive memories of working with Ronald both in this country and in the many different and varied locations our work took us to. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Ronald passed away in December 2022.