It is with sadness that our community honours the passing of Dr John Woodward on 5 February.   

John was a trusted colleague, a dedicated member of this Network, a solicitor who spent almost 30 years in litigation practice, a mediator, an arbitrator, and a member of the Law Society of NSW ADR Committee.   He was also so much more than his career achievements, a man who spoke lovingly of his family, an artist, avid tennis player and a friend to so many. One of John’s greatest contributions to the world of ADR was his time spent teaching students in the legal clinic and in civil procedure. His encyclopaedic knowledge of litigation allowed him to speak with an authority on why cultural change in the legal profession is essential, and students listened to what he had to say.

Litigation had been the cornerstone of most of John’s career, and his experience eventually led him to become a keen observer of litigation’s shortcomings. Here is how John explained his ‘conversion’ from hard-nosed litigator to a strong believer in the power of mediation and “the vision of a broader view of justice“:

“[My conclusion was] after thirty years of legal practice as a commercial litigator, that the solutions being offered to litigants by the traditional justice system were somewhat less than ideal.  Clients were complaining that the court could not offer the relief they were seeking, the costs of “winning” were prohibitively high and most of the cases in which I was instructed were resolved on some basis well before they reached a hearing. 

Try as I might, I could never quite be convinced of the claim that the public interest in having the courts “…explicate and give force to the values embodied in authoritative texts…” (1) or otherwise declare the law for the benefit of the public good, had any real relevance to some of the mundane and routine cases in which I was involved.  In fact, of all of the hundreds of cases in which I acted throughout my career as a lawyer, only two found their way into the law reports.” ¹

After graduating with a Masters in Dispute Resolution from UNSW, John decided to commence his PhD, as he felt that regulators had made certain assumptions about the legal change that had been brought about by civil procedure rules mandating mediation. The topic resonated well with one of John’s favourite quotes:

“How small, of all that human hearts endure, that part which laws or kings can cause or cure.”

You can read an earlier profile of John and his PhD work in this blog post from 2016.   He graduated in 2019, with his dissertation modestly entitled “Lawyer approaches to Court-Connected Mediation: A New Case Study,” and this is available free open access through SSRN. The key finding of John’s PhD research, based on a large set of qualitative data, was that lawyers are keenly aware of their ethical obligations towards their clients in terms of protecting them, but that this gave rise to a reluctance to have clients directly participating in the mediation process. He also identified that the profession remains generally confused about the extend of confidentiality in mediation, and that this further inhibits lawyers from engaging fully in the mediation process. Finally, he noted that there were still cultural barriers within the profession, stemming at least in part from the limits of most models of legal education.

Some of John’s pieces on this network include: 

• Reflections on integrative practice as a guide to managing a coronavirus world

• The mind half closed: the effect of culture on attitudes to collaborative practice

• Restorative Justice – Another Dimension

Some of John’s scholarly articles include:

• The Element of Good Faith as a Framework for Ethical Practice in Court Connected Mediation. (2022) 10(3) Journal of Civil Law and Practice
• Walking the tightrope: Exploring the relationship between confidentiality and disputant participation (2019) 30(1) Australasian Dispute Resolution Journal 23.
• Encouraging dialogue between large and diverse groups: the emerging field of facilitation” (2016) 27 Australasian Dispute Resolution Journal 58
• Tipping the Scales: to what extent does the presence of power imbalances detract from the efficacy of principled negotiation?” (2015) 26 Australasian Dispute Resolution Journal 86,
• Court-connected dispute resolution: whose interests are being served? (2014) 25 Australasian Dispute Resolution Journal 159.

John had a fight on his hands after being diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma in mid-2023, and he faced that fight with his usual sense of humour and determination, exceeding the dire predictions of his life expectancy but cautioning me regularly with a grin, “don’t buy me any green bananas.” I had the privilege of supervising John’s PhD thesis at UNSW and then at the University of Newcastle, and as the decade passed, we built a friendship based on a passion for ADR (and also for coffee) that transcended the difference in our life stages.

Thank you John for all you taught us, for the future generation of lawyers you helped educate, and for showing us all the power of change to make the world a better place. Ave atque Vale (hail and farewell).

At the 13^th ADR Research Network Roundtable in November, we will hold a session in John’s honour.  If you’d like to be involved, please contact me or respond to the call for papers. 

1. Quote from John’s 2018 blog post about his PhD journey ↩︎