After spending 35 years as a highly successful high court advocate and trial lawyer at the Cape Bar, Advocate Alan Nelson SC resigned from the Cape Bar in 2006 and currently offers his expertise in all facets of civil and commercial law as an internationally qualified and accredited mediator.
Alan qualified as a lawyer in 1975, attaining his BA LLB Law degree, Cum Laude, at Stellenbosch University, after which he qualified as an Attorney before becoming an Advocate in 1978. Silk status was conferred upon him in 1993 and he has been a Senior Advocate for more than twenty years. Alan recently acted as a judge of the Cape High Court.
Alan completed the Conflict Dynamics Mediation course in May 2012 and is an accredited CEDR mediator and has since undergone specialist mediation training in Switzerland. He currently trains mediators at the University of Cape Town and is a co-founder of the ‘MiM Peace and Mediation Training Centre’, where specialist mediators are trained under the auspices of UCT to conduct mediation in specialist fields.
Alan serves on three mediation panels and is an elected member of the ADR Forum of the Western Cape Government. He recently co-founded ‘Mediation in Motion’ a not for profit company that promotes mediation and links those in need to specialist mediators free of charge via an innovative electronic process. He frequently addresses audiences on mediation. Since qualifying as a mediator four years ago, Alan has been involved in a large number of substantial commercial matters, either as mediator or assisting parties to the dispute.
Since mediation in trade mark disputes is relatively new in South Africa, Alan has been involved in only two such matters. One involved a dispute in the wine industry between prominent brands and the other South Africa’s largest retail companies. In the first Alan assisted one of the parties and in the second he served as the mediator. This dispute was referred to mediation by the Supreme Court of Appeal.
During his career as an advocate Alan was involved in numerous intellectual property and restraint of trade cases, with Competition Law being one of his areas of specialty where he acted in high profile matters in the mining, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries.