Charlotte has a broad commercial-chancery practice and has acted in both High Court and County Court disputes across a wide range of areas, including: Contract (commercial and consumer); Wills and Probate (both contentious and non-contentious, including in Part 8 Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependents) Act 1975 matters); International and Domestic Sale of Goods and the Supply of Goods and Services; Landlord and Tenant (both commercial and residential); Insolvency and Bankruptcy; and Mortgages and Security.
Charlotte is also Head of the 10KBW Mediation Group and in 2021 established 10KBW’s mediation panel. She is a CEDR accredited commercial mediator, registered with the Civil Mediation Council (CMC) and a mediation advocate, representing clients at mediation since 2008.
Charlotte’s mediation experience includes both two-way and multi-party disputes in the areas of: Contentious Probate (particularly in Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 matters where a family member seeks reasonable financial provision under a will); Property (issues of valid transfer, TOLATA in relation to cohabiting couples); Breach of Contract (construction, asset finance and leasing, general); Tort (neighbour boundary disputes, conversion of goods); Landlord & Tenant (disrepair, listed building consent) and Company (family shareholder). Charlotte will also accept mediation appointments and mediation advocacy instructions in workplace matters.
Charlotte has completed executive education at the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation with world-renowned negotiator, Professor Bruce Patton, co-author of the seminal text, Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving In and a co-developer of the Harvard framework of principled negotiation.
Charlotte is unique as a mediator in that she coaches parties and their legal representatives in the Harvard framework in order to help them to maximise and claim value. Her mediation style is assertively facilitative. She assists parties to hold a rigorous yet respectful negotiation, helping to ensure that a workable agreement is made in the parties’ mutual self-interest.
As mediation advocate, Charlotte is praised by clients as being “entirely unfazed by [complex, late instructions]”, and able to “get up to speed in no time at all”. Her experience as barrister, negotiator and mediator allows her to analyse a dispute from all legal, practical and commercial angles. She is therefore pragmatic, tactical and robust in negotiations, knowing astutely and intuitively how to work with the mediator to ensure her client’s success.
Charlotte has also acted as a judge, trainer and facilitator in mediation and negotiation skills:
- Panel judge, 2022, 2021 and 2020 CEDR National Student Negotiation Competition
- Facilitator, CEDR New Dialogues programme for emerging leaders under 30.
- Mediator, CEDR mediation advocacy training for junior Magic Circle lawyers at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
- Lead on 10KBW webinar series on mediation and negotiation.
Charlotte studied law at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, attaining a Distinction and one of the highest marks in the year for her LLM in International Commercial Law at the University of Nottingham. Her dissertation on commercial insurance law, “Should the Insurance Law Warranty Survive Reform?”, awarded a Distinction, was requested by the Law Commission (England and Wales) to be used as part of their on-going insurance contract law review in 2007.