Graham Ross,Managing Director, is a retired solicitor now in practice as a commercial mediator. Graham has over 20 years experience in IT and the law, is the author of legal applications software (including the original version of the QUILL solicitor's accounts and time recording package) and was the founder of LAWTEL, the popular web-based legal information update service.
Graham is a member of the United Nations Expert Panel on Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) and a Fellow of the National Centre for Technology and Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusetts. Graham speaks regularly at international conferences on the impact of the law on the Internet and e-commerce and on technology in the judiciary and Alternative Dispute Resolution. Graham was host of the 5th International Conference on Online Dispute Resolution held in Liverpool, UK, in 2007 in collaboration with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) . Graham was a member of the Working Party of the European Committee on Standardisation (CEN) which developid a taxonomy for Online Dispute Resolution and currently is a team member of the EMCOD project (www.emcod.net) which is creating a facility for the European Union for the measurement of justice through ODR . Graham is also a leading trainer in ODR having created the accredited distance training course in ODR provided by TheMediationRoom to mediators in over 15 countries.
As a practising solicitor, as well as technology and internet law, Graham had considerable experience in clinical negligence and in major high profile personal injury and product liability group actions, including the successful action against the UK Government for HIV infected haemophiliacs (which he founded and led) and was a member of the steering committee that negotiated the largest ever group settlement, being for miners made ill by coal dust inhalation).
John Melville Williams QC has 46 years' experience practising as a barrister (QC since 1977), specialising in personal injury, medical (clinical) negligence, insurance claims, environmental claims, product liability, year 2000 claims and trans-national jurisdictional issues.
He recently retired as head of Old Square Chambers and has sat as a recorder (1985-1994), has been president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers - APIL (1990-1994), co-chair of International Practice Section of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (1991-1992), chairman of the Y2K Lawyers' Association, a member of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (1998-2000), an ADR qualified mediator, a Legal Assessor to the General Medical Council 1984 to 2008, a member of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel (2000-2008), and a member of the Environmental Law Foundation's Advisory Panel.
Professor Avrom Sherr, holder of the Woolf Chair at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, is acting as a consultant and expert adviser to TheClaimRoom.com. Avrom is one of the country's foremost legal experts.
At the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Professor Sherr is currently active in the fields of legal profession studies, studies on legal education, assessment of the quality of legal services in the United Kingdom, and the architecture of the Legal Services Commission's Community Legal Service and Criminal Defence Services.
John Snelson is consultant to our Australian company, The Claim Room Pty Ltd and a former senior partner at the international accountancy and consultancy firm, Ernst & Young, in Sydney, Australia, where he has been the Director of Ernst & Young's Management Consulting Practice and National Director of their Performance Improvement Division across Australia. John has worked with many blue-chip companies, such as AXA, Bank of America, Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola, Commonwealth Bank, Fujitsu, Telstra and Time Warner. John has also worked in the public sector including the NSW Premier's Department on a series of Management & Strategy Reviews and also played a significant role in the design of the NSW State Owned Corporations Act and the implementation of the commercialisation, corporatisation and privatisation programs. John also sat on the Commission of Inquiry into the Common Law aspects of the NSW Workers' Compensation Scheme. Internationally he has worked extensively throughout Asia and has been a special advisor to the Asia Development Bank.