Biography
Mary Walker OAM has been at the forefront of ADR in Australia for the last 35 years during which, as a member of an independent Bar, she has arbitrated, acted as expert determiner and expert appraiser, provided ombudsman services, mediated, facilitated and negotiated across jurisdictions and substantive legal areas. She is internationally recognised as an ADR practitioner. She was Co-Chair of the International Bar Association Mediation Committee 2020-2021 and a member of the IBA Mediation Committee Advisory Board as well as being a Chair of the Law Council of Australia International Law Section 2020-2023, a Co-Chair of the International Dispute Resolution Committee and Chair of the Law Council of Australia's Federal Dispute Resolution Section ADR Committee for many years. In 1995, Mary was sponsored by Harvard University to teach with Professor Frank Sander and she has trained hundreds of mediators and ADR practitioners and lectured in many university courses on ADR, mediation and legal topics. Mary has appeared before UNCITRAL on behalf of the International Bar Association (55th and 56th Sessions re Codes of Conduct and Guidelines for judges, arbitrators and mediators for international dispute resolution). She has been a member of many Taskforces on mediation and ADR including as a member of the ICC Task Force on ADR and Arbitration and an Australian delegate to the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR and a member of the Advisory Board of the Hague Court of Arbitration for Aviation. She holds many positions on ADR Committees and Editorial Boards and advises courts, governments and industries on ADR systems and legislative reforms and is regularly invited to speak at international forums. She has been awarded the Australian Mediator of the Year Award in 2016, 2017 and 2018 by the Australian Disputes Centre and awarded International Mediator of the Year in 2018 and 2019. Mary was inducted into the Australian ADR Awards Hall of Fame as its Inaugural member in 2019 (once inducted into the Australian ADR Awards Hall of Fame, you are no longer eligible to be nominated for future Awards). Mary has mediated thousands of matters and is certified by the International Mediation Institute as a Mediator and Mediation Advocate and is currently a member of the IMI Ethics Committee and IMI Quality Assurance Committee. Mary is a member of the Singapore International Mediation Centre Panel, JIMC-Kyoto Mediator Panel, an Investor-State Mediator with the Abu Dhabi Global Market Financial Centre (ADGM) and is a member of the CCPIT (Beijing) Mediation Panel amongst other appointments. Mary is an ICC Australian Chamber of Commerce Arbitrator. Mary was President of the Australian Dispute Resolution Association (ADRA) and in 2017, she was appointed a Fellow for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Dispute Resolution and in 2021 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for Service to the Law by the Australian Governor-General.