Professional background and experience:

Laurence Boulle was educated at the Universities of KZN, Stellenbosch and London. He is an Advocate of the High Court and former Dean of Law at UKZN and Director of the Mandela Institute at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. In Australia, Laurence is an Accredited Mediator (NMAS) and a registered Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner. He has chaired both the Australian Mediator Standards Board and the South African Dispute Resolution Practitioner Council and has written extensively on dispute resolution topics in several jurisdictions. He currently holds academic positions at universities in Australia, the Pacific and South Africa.

Mediation experience and style:

Laurence has been mediating since 1990 in Leasing, Commercial, Intellectual Property, Family, Native Title, Workplace and Community Disputes. He has mediated in South Africa and in many parts of Australia and has trained dispute resolution practitioners in many parts of the world. He practices both on- and off-line and is a member of several national, and two international panels of dispute resolvers. 

Laurence began mediating with community justice centres where he was trained in a strict facilitative style. He attempts to be responsive to the needs of clients, the circumstances and the advisers and has recently developed an appropriate style for facilitating hard bargaining over money. He has also attempted to bring elements of transformative and restorative mediation into appropriate cases.

Comments from mediation clients:

“I wanted to sincerely thank you for your effort mediating yesterday. I felt that you were scrupulously fair, quick to grasp the issues and very pragmatic in your approach”.

“Frankly, it was refreshing to work with you through the mediation process and the experience has somewhat restored my faith in the fairness of the system. With my warm regards and sincere thanks [April 2020]”.