Rachael Bicknell
Over the last 5 years Rachael has built a thriving commercial and civil mediation practice. She is listed in Chambers and Partners (2026) in the top 50 commercial mediators in the UK and as a Leading UK Mediator in Legal 500 (2026).
She brings to her mediation practice two decades of dispute resolution expertise, including over 14 years commercial litigation experience at two of the UK’s most successful premium law firms. She specialises in commercial disputes and is routinely appointed on contractual, professional negligence, construction, real estate, insolvency, company, director, shareholder, family business, business interruption, partnership, boardroom, and inheritance and executry disputes. She mediates with corporates, insurers, private, public and third sector clients and with parties from the UK, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, the USA, Canada and Australia. She has mediated claims with up to 6 separately represented parties and 40 participants.
Rachael consistently receives excellent client feedback and has been described as “hugely skilful”, “impressive”, “incredible”, “the best mediator I’ve come across in a long time” and “my first choice of mediator”. She is renowned for her calm, assured and personable manner, her thorough preparation, and her ability to grasp complex technical issues and to quickly understand multiple issues and competing interests. Rachael is also praised for her ability to quickly build rapport and for her tenacity and resilience in helping the parties to come to a resolution, even when they remain some considerable distance apart.
Rachael is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators (IAM), an invitation-only organisation of the world’s pre-eminent commercial mediators. She is also certified by the International Mediation Institute (IMI) and the Singapore International Mediation Institute (SIMI) and a registered civil and commercial mediator with the Civil Mediation Council (CMC) and Scottish Mediation. She is on the mediation panels for the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb), the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Scottish Land Commission.
She trained in negotiation and mediation at Harvard Law School and the Strauss Institute at the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law respectively. She is a member of the training faculty on the RICS Mediation Training Programme and until 2023 taught negotiation skills on the Online LLM in Dispute Resolution at the University of Aberdeen, a UK top-10 law school.
Areas of practice include:
Agriculture and rural business
Boundary and access
Boardroom
Breach of contract and warranty claims
Commercial and business
Construction and engineering
Corporate and shareholder
Employment
Energy
Family business
Financial services
Inheritance and executry
Insolvency
Land and forestry
Landlord and tenant
Partnerships
Professional negligence
Real estate
Sale of goods and services
Telecoms