Michael Shane Atkin Chambers

Michael Shane


Mediator & Arbitrator

Michael Shane is a highly-regarded international mediator and arbitrator. His career has included being a trial lawyer in private practice and a commercial lawyer in-house in the engineering, design, and construction industry. Since focusing on arbitration and mediation, Michael has been instructed on almost every conceivable sort of commercial dispute and over the years he has built a reputation based on this extensive experience and on his determination and ability to bring disputes to a resolution.

Michael specialises in complex international commercial disputes arising in a wide range of industry sectors and practices including:

  • construction and infrastructure
  • energy and utilities
  • banking
  • insurance
  • intellectual property and information technology
  • general commercial

He has been a full time mediator and arbitrator for 25 years, mediating in excess of 1,500 major disputes in the US, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and Africa, and acting as arbitrator in over 150 cases involving complex commercial matters both in the US and internationally.

Michael features in The Legal 500’s Hall of Fame for his continued excellence as a mediator and he is recommended in the most recent editions of the legal directories – The Legal 500 and Chambers – as a leader in his field. He is a member of the HKIAC and is on the Hong Kong Government’s list of approved and qualified mediators. He is also an arbitrator on the LCIA database of neutrals and has been appointed to the KLRCA Panel as arbitrator and mediator.

He has taught basic and advanced mediator training courses for the American Arbitration Association; the Australian Commercial Disputes Centre, Sydney; and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre. He has also lectured and written extensively on the subject of ADR.

He was a previously a trial lawyer in California and Hawaii before becoming Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Director of URS Corporation, San Francisco.