John has 30 years' experience in conducting ADR processes. In 1997, he left the Federal bench to become the Director of the Irell & Manella ADR Center, where he engaged in a full-time practice as a neutral. He previously served for 12 years as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Northern District of Oklahoma. He was appointed to this position at age 31, after trying many substantial cases to verdict as litigation partner with Kornfeld & Franklin. While on the Federal bench, he founded and administered a court-annexed mediation program and served as an ADR neutral, in addition to maintaining a full civil caseload. John has successfully conducted thousands of mediations and arbitrations. He is respected and requested for his extensive experience and skill in resolving multi-party, and extremely complex issues in cases involving intellectual property, construction defect, environmental and mass torts, as well as securities and consumer class actions. He has also earned a reputation for handling matters with a high emotional content including employment, civil rights, partnership dissolution plus all types of business, insurance and personal injury disputes. John is a long time Distinguished Fellow with the International Academy of Mediators, and its former President.

Christopher will be the Moderator of this webinar.

Christopher has been a leading pioneer in developing alternative dispute resolution in Asia for over three decades. He is a barrister-at-law, independent arbitrator, adjudicator, mediator and domain name specialist with qualifications in engineering and computing, and he currently sits on the panels of more than 40 alternative dispute resolution institutions. Over the years, Christopher has arbitrated, adjudicated, and mediated more than 1,000 international and domestic cases.

He has consistently received recognition for his work in alternative dispute resolution, such as being awarded Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and recognized by the International Who’s Who Legal as a Thought Leader in arbitration and mediation.

As former Secretary-General of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre for a decade, Christopher elevated Hong Kong’s position as an international dispute resolution services centre on par with leading global arbitration centres. He also created the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre, which is internationally recognized in the dot.com community for resolving domain name disputes.

Christopher has authored or co-authored 14 books on the subject of dispute resolution. His two latest publications are Mediation in Hong Kong: Law and Practice (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2022) and The Arbitration Ordinance (Cap.609) in the Annotated Ordinances of Hong Kong (LexisNexis Butterworths, 2022). In addition, Christopher was the chief architect behind the establishing and publishing of the Asian Dispute Review Journal, the leading Asian alternative dispute resolution journal.

Since 2019, Christopher has served as the Programme Director of the programme for Master of Laws in Arbitration and Dispute Resolution at the City University of Hong Kong. He currently serves as Chairperson of the Hong Kong Mediation Council Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary within the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, Chairperson of the Hong Kong Institute of Directors, and Chairperson of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, Construction Dispute Resolution Committee.