The story of Pontem Mediation

Pontem Mediation is a specialist dispute resolution practice founded by Kate Redfern, a former barrister and senior communications professional of 20 years' experience.

Kate spent a decade practising as a civil law barrister, specialising in personal injury, medical negligence, and employment law. She appeared regularly in courts and tribunals, advising clients through some of the most difficult moments of their lives - and learning, close up, what litigation costs people: not just financially, but in time, energy, and the impact it has on relationships.

She then moved into strategic corporate communications, working at director level in technology and other sectors. She led communications functions, built brand voices, and spent years working in complex organisations where the hardest problems were rarely technical. They were human.

That breadth of experience - legal rigour combined with expert communication - shapes everything about how Pontem Mediation works.

Mediation isn't about deciding who is right. It's about creating the conditions for people to find their own way forward. Like a bridge - which is what pontem means in Latin - Pontem Mediation doesn't take sides. It connects them.

Kate brings to each mediation not just her rigorous training, but a genuine understanding of how disputes feel from the inside: the frustration, the fear, the sense of being unheard. She also brings two decades of professional experience in reading rooms, navigating complexity, and helping people say what they actually mean.

Based in Oxfordshire, Pontem Mediation works with people and businesses across the region and beyond - in person and online.

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