CEDR founder returns for three-month secondment

LOVELL White Durrant's former joint managing partner Charles Dodson is being seconded to the Centre for Dispute Resolution (CEDR).

Dodson, who set up Lovell's Chicago office this summer, will spend around three months with the leading ADR (alternative dispute resolution) body he helped found five years ago.

Karl Mackie, CEDR chief executive, said the centre was "lucky to have enticed him away from Lovell White Durrant for a few months and [he] will be making the most of this opportunity to test CEDR's thinking against the experience of a key practitioner".

Dodson will return to Lovell's litigation department after the secondment. He was previously involved in the planning work which preceded CEDR's establishment. As a result, Lovells was an original founder member, and Dodson was one of the members of the original CEDR board.

John Trotter, Lovell's head of dispute resolution practice, said the firm had successfully used ADR for clients and

Dodson's secondment would "help ensure that we remain at the cutting edge of an area which is developing very fast".

Dodson was unavailable for comment last week.



Lovells has taken on a senior lawyer from Japan's largest firm Nagashima & Ohno, with which it has a long-standing relationship. Shumpei Tanaka, a corporate finance lawyer, is being seconded to the City firm for a year.