At the SCL AGM on 13 December, barrister and leading mediation and dispute expert Clive Freedman and prominent IT solicitor Roger Bickerstaff were elected as SCL Trustees for the first time. Jonathan Smith of Fujitsu has been re-elected as a Trustee.
After a year as Joint Chair with Richard Stephens, Bill Jones of Wragge & Co LLP has become the sole Chair of the Society. For an interview with Bill Jones, click here.
Glen Davis has stepped down after a number of valuable years of service as a Trustee, including four years as Chair of the Media Board. Richard Stephens has also relinquished his position as a Trustee, again after years involved in SCL’s management including a spell as Chairman.
The two new trustees expressed their pleasure at being elected.
Roger Bickerstaff sees the main focus of his activities as trustee in assisting in its educational programme, giving a public sector and an international perspective. He also expects to assist in linkages with other associations, such as Intellect. Roger is a partner at Bird & Bird and joint head of the Bird & Bird International IT Sector Group. Over the last few years he has developed a special focus on educational IT projects, with an interest in developing the UK educational IT marketplace for the benefit of students, teachers and the supplier marketplace.
Clive Freedman is a barrister practising at 3 Verulam Buildings in Gray’s Inn. He specialises in contractual disputes arising from IT projects, and other areas of commercial law including construction, professional negligence and banking. He is also a CEDR Accredited Mediator and a Chartered Arbitrator. Not only is he a Trustee of BAILII, he also wrote the software for converting judgments to HTML for use on BAILII’s web site. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society. He said ‘I am very interested in playing my part, within the wider context of the SCL, in helping parties to resolve their disputes in the most satisfactory manner and, with the benefit of my experience in the various methods of dispute resolution, I am well-placed to do that. I will look for opportunities to assist in the development of best practice in IT dispute resolution, with a view to assisting parties reach resolutions which they find satisfactory.’
Jonathan Smith is Head of Legal at Fujitsu Services. He is a director of the Trade Marks Patents and Designs Federation. A trustee of the Society since 2004, he is also a former chairman of the SCL’s Thames Valley Group, having been involved with the TVG since its inception. He intends to continue to represent the interests of in-house lawyers within the Society, in the belief that that serves both their interests and those of the other groups represented in the Society
