Dr Katherine Johnson
Co-President | Fellow | Governance Sub-Committee
Katherine is an internationally and nationally accredited mediator, serving on various mediation panels including the International Mediation Institute (IMI), Papua New Guinea Supreme Court (PNG), and the Supreme Court of NSW. She is a barrister of the NSW Bar since 1993, a retired counselling, organisational and community psychologist in private practice from 1984 to 2017; and a trainer/assessor of mediators since 2000.
Katherine was appointed as a mediator to the Workers Compensation Commission of NSW (WCC) from its inception in 2001 until 1 March 2021 when it became the Personal Injury Commission (PIC) and has served on the Family Law Settlement Services Panel (FLSS) of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia from its inception until 2020 as a nationally accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner (FDRP). She remains an accredited mediator on the Attorney General’s Panel as a Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner (FDRP) and works as a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) for the Legal Department of Communities and Justice.
In October 2024, Katherine was presented with a prestigious award from the Thessaloniki Chamber of Commerce and the Hellenic ADR Hub in Greece, for services to World Mediation as an Interdisciplinary Mediation Pioneer for her PhD in Law majoring in Dispute Resolution called Re-Constructionist Mediation.
She also received the Mahatma Gandhi Award for Leadership for her considerable services to the Australian Dispute Resolution Association (ADRA) over the last 28 years; and received
the Inaugural award for Speakers to the Mind Health Forum from the McMillan Room, Oxford University, England for services to improve World Mind Health.
Founder of:
- PAVE the Way to PEACE (PAVE), an interest group of educators meeting in NSW Parliament House since 1996
and Co-founder of:
- DR Interest group of Australian Psychological Society (APS)
- Industry Forum of Dispute Resolution now the Council for Alternate Dispute Resolvers (CADR)
Leadership positions held:
- President of the Australian Dispute Resolution Association (ADRA) from 2006-2007; from 2013-2017 and from 2019-2021.
- Vice President of ADRA from 2008-2013; and from 2018 -2019.
- Vice President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (ANZAPPL 2010-17).
- See resume for appointments etc.
Under Katherine’s presidency, ADRA made the following developments:
- Steered the Industry Forum of Dispute Resolution in Australia to develop a Complaints Handling template approved for the Industry by the Mediator Standards Board.
- Became a Registered Mediation Accreditation Provider (RMAB) for mediators.
- Facilitated the upgrade of ADRA’s digital presence.
- Initiated international projects in Mongolia that have assisted in strengthening Mongolia’s civil society.
- Initiated its first International Conference to Build Tomorrow’s Society via Dispute Resolution.
Katherine is the longest-serving President of ADRA being either President, Co-president or Vice president for 19 of the 28 years she spent on the Board. She was made a Fellow of ADRA in 2018 and a Life Member of ADRA in 2024.
Katherine’s extensive practice in Psychology, Law and Education has led her to develop an interdisciplinary approach which could transform Dispute Resolution into an agent for social change. Her research culminated in a PhD in Law from Macquarie University in 2015 and her use of mediation as a process of social constructionism in action combines the insights from the field of Loss and grief in Psychology to the practical resolution of disputes in Law that empowers parties to constructively respond to their own crises/losses as a means of accessing their own social justice.
Katherine has been called a ‘prac-ademic’ because she attempts to constructively implement in her practice what theory teaches us academically and attempts to learn from practice what can be generalised as a grounded researcher to become academic knowledge.
Sydney, NSW, 2000 and online.
Specialties:
Family, Business, Complex matters, International, Property, Franchise and Personal Injury.
Contact:
Web:
Mediation Quest: Making Sense of Loss
Note:
Extensive experience conducting mediations by phone and online.
Resume:
Katherine’s resume