A local lawyer has finished one of the most highly regarded programmes for the training of commercial mediators.

Keren Lomas has completed the commercial mediation course organised by the London-based Centre for Dispute Resolution (CEDR).

Ms Lomas is now an accredited mediator with CEDR, which makes her automatically eligible for enrolment in the mediator panel with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London.

CEDR is training top lawyers, including four practitioners from Allen & Overy, London's 1998 leading commercial law firm.

And apart from others in the UK, Ms Lomas was among a list of international lawyers from Hong Kong, France, Brussels and Switzerland who took advantage of instruction that left them as highly-trained as anyone can be in commercial mediation.

Ms Lomas has for some time been one of the leading proponents of Bermuda as an international centre for mediation and arbitration.

She said yesterday, "International arbitration is a successful international movement in dispute resolution. Bermuda has been trying to play a part as an international arbitration site, since we implemented legislation in 1993, with various degrees of success.

"But I do believe that in the insurance industry, more and more of the international companies operating from Bermuda are incorporating Bermuda into their insurance policies and contracts as the chosen site for arbitration.

"On the local level, arbitration has long been used to resolve construction and labour disputes. But it has not been widely used in other areas of local society.

"That's because the consumer doesn't know that they have the right to ask for it. The real estate section of the Chamber of Commerce agreed last year to amend their sales purchase agreements to nominate the Bermuda Mediation & Arbitration Association as the body to administer arbitrations arising out of disputes from such agreements.

"In my law practice, I promote the incorporation of arbitration clauses in all sorts of agreements, leases, contracts, etc.'' Ms Lomas said that those combined efforts will eventually lead to more use of the mediation and arbitration expertise in the Island.

In fact, she advocates a wider application of that expertise, noting that the Department of Health & Family Services is interested in promoting mediation to resolve domestic disputes.

She said, "Those in the department have more to do with their time than to make decisions for warring parents, who really are intelligent enough to make their own decisions, if they put aside their emotions.'' Karen Lomas