David has been conducting mediations for the past 6 years both court ordered and franchise mediations and on a variety of panels including the VSBC and VCAT.
David is an experienced mediator in:
- Commercial disputes including contractual disputes, joint ventures, banking, guarantees, trusts, and franchises
- Insolvency disputes including disputes over preferential payments, uncommercial transactions, insolvent trading and breaches of directors’ duties.
- Property disputes including co-ownership disputes, commercial and retail lease disputes and disputes regarding claims in relation to ownership claims from constructive or resulting trusts.
David believes that, whilst in some circumstances, continued litigation is unavoidable, the majority of disputes can be resolved through a close examination of the issues in dispute, a greater understanding of the position of them other parties, a realistic consideration of your own position and a recognition of the costs, risk and perils of litigation. If there is any prospect that a matter can be resolved, it should be – it is normally in everybody’s best interest.
David has been practising law for over 40 years and in 1996 was accredited as a Commercial Litigation Specialist by the Law Institute of Victoria.
In 1997, David was invited to be a member of the Commercial Litigation Specialist Advisory Committee. He subsequently joined the LIV Specialisation Board, on which he served for 13 years, and was Chair for 3 years. David was awarded the President’s Award for Specialisation in 2008.
Since 2008 David has been either a consultant or Special Counsel with the long-established firm of McKean Park
Earlier this year, David was appointed as a Sessional Ombudsman in Banking & Finance at the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. He continues to work as a commercial litigator, an Ombudsman and a mediator.
David’s mediation practice is David Brett Dispute Resolution.