Margaret is a researcher, author and an experienced mediator, specialising in equalities issues and disputes between individuals and public bodies. She is accredited in special educational needs and disabilities mediation and in elder mediation.
As a Visiting Research Fellow with the University of Essex School of Law, she combines her rights-based mediation practice with research that explores the role of mediation and ombuds in administrative justice.
In 2022, Margaret became the first mediator in England to be certified as a specialist mediator in disputes involving older people.
Margaret wrote the first guide to appropriate dispute resolution in the UK, Advising on ADR, published in 2000 by the Advice Services Alliance, where she worked with the independent advice service to develop awareness of alternatives to litigation for social welfare issues. She worked with the Public Law Project to carry out the first UK research into mediation in judicial review (2009-11).
Her other research has included evaluations of the court-based mediation pilots in Manchester County Court (2004-06), mapping the use of informal resolution by ombud institutions (2014), a study of equality and human rights dispute resolution (for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2016-18), and young people’s participation in resolving disputes about their special educational needs and disabilities support (2019). She is a member of the Academic Panel of the Administrative Justice Council.
Margaret was one of the original panel mediators with the Disability Conciliation Service established by the Disability Rights Commission in 2001, and she practised with that service’s successor, the Equalities Mediation Service, until it closed in 2013. Since 2003 she has been an independent mediator in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and in elder mediation.
Margaret’s approach as a mediator is facilitative and rights based. She mediates in claims against public bodies such as schools and local authorities, including discrimination (especially disability discrimination) claims and challenges to decision-making. She is a member of the College of Mediators and is accredited under the SEND Practice Standards and certified by the Elder Mediation International Network (EMIN).
Publications
A Place at the Table: A report on young people’s participation in resolving disputes about special educational needs and disabilities. Project Report. UK Administrative Justice Institute (2019)
Reimagining Administrative Justice: Human Rights in Small Places, with Nick O’Brien, Palgrave/Macmillan (2019)