Christopher qualified as a solicitor in 1971. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and has been an actively practising CEDR accredited mediator since 1995. He is third generation of his family in the firm and Managing Partner. He has been heavily involved in moving Raworths from a traditional provincial practice into a modern legal business.
Christopher comes from a farming background and is interested in technology, engineering and practical matters. He has been involved in the use of information technology since the very earliest days of the IT revolution - introducing word processing in the early 1970s, even before there were PCs.
His wide-ranging experience includes both contentious and non-contentious commercial work over the last forty years. This has ranged from, in the early days, crime, family and heavy personal injury work, involving steel works and textile mills, to twenty five years of commercial litigation, business and commercial advice. He is a past President of the Harrogate & District Law Society.
Since 1995 Christopher has specialised as a civil/commercial mediator, and is one of the most experienced in the UK. He is a CEDR Accredited Mediator and one of a small national group of key mediators on their 'Direct' panel, a member of the Court of Appeal mediation panel, a member of the Law Society's specialist Civil/Commercial Mediation panel and a member of the mediation panel of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.
Christopher has mediated throughout UK and overseas, and deals with a wide spectrum of disputes ranging from commercial contractual matters to IT; Agriculture and land to inter-proprietor disputes; inheritance matters to partnership; professional negligence claims and product defects. Their size has been from little more than intrinsic value to a $65 million IT dispute, dealt with in San Francisco. He has also 'chaired' a dialogue between two governments over fishing rights. He has been described as "Down to earth, pragmatic and realistic" and "A very accomplished mediator with a nice easy style".
Download a copy of Christopher's mediation CV (PDF).
Christopher also works as a Local Conciliation Officer for the Legal Complaints Service, helping resolve difficult disputes made by members of the public against their solicitors.
