NLJ Career profile: Joanna Gosling

What was your route into the profession?

This has been a mid-life career change for me, but the roots of it go back a long way. Throughout my career as a journalist, the stories that have stuck with me are the ones where ordinary people find themselves caught up in something that changes their life, and their perspective, and they stand up for change, which takes them into conflict, as they fight to be heard, and fight for rights. Over time, I was also becoming increasingly interested in how we have conversations on difficult issues, in an era of cancel culture. So, giving a voice, lending an ear and shining a light, were my guiding principles.

Separately, I experienced my own difficulties—I am divorced and I had an employment status and equality issue at work. This gave me an acute personal perspective on what it is like to navigate conflict. All of these came together to make me passionate about relationship dynamics and communication, at home and at work, which ultimately led me to mediation. I wanted to be the person I would have liked to have had around in my difficult times. Once I realised this was my path, I became quite voracious about learning and getting as much experience as I could; training, reading, observing, and co-mediating.

I qualified to mediate family, workplace and commercial disputes and I also studied Mediation and Negotiation with the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation. It’s clear there’s a great synergy between my work as a journalist and as a mediator, in terms of motivation and skills. For some time I was doing both jobs alongside each other, until I took the decision to focus on mediation.

What has been your biggest career challenge so far?

Leaving a well-paid staff job to take a leap into the unknown. In July 2022, I was told, along with 19 other BBC News presenters, that restructuring (merging the domestic and world news channels), meant 14 of us would lose our jobs. It was unexpected and a big shock. However, I quickly realised redundancy could be an opportunity for me. Mediation had become my absolute passion, I was qualified and already working pro bono as a mediator. So, the decision to leave wasn’t difficult in itself—I knew it was absolutely the right choice for me to take. But still, it was a big challenge, negotiating my way out, and starting anew, without any certainty that it would work out.

Which person within the legal profession inspires you most?

US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg—am I allowed to pick someone no longer with us, and in a different judiciary?!  A trailblazer and champion, who was open about the obstacles she herself faced to achieve what she did, and who used that experience and wisdom to be absolutely rooted in what it is to be human in all of her work.

If you weren’t in the legal sector, what would you choose as an alternate career?

Ha, this is already my alternate career.

Who is your favourite fictional lawyer?

I don’t have one, but I’ll happily spend hours watching the brilliant brains of real-life lawyers in action. Early on in my career as a journalist I was lucky to be sent to the Old Bailey to cover a case that featured George Carman. It was technical and quite dry on the day, but still I was gripped and felt very lucky to be able to see the great man in action.

What change would you make to the profession?

I would like mediation to be embedded in the collective thinking when conflict hits, and for our systems to support that. Too often the decision to mediate comes after other processes have played out over a long period, by which time a bad situation has got even worse. There’s a lot of debate around compulsory mediation. I understand you can’t force people to agree, and therefore both sides need to be willing. However, I think the system we have is flawed, whereby one person can refuse to mediate, closing that path off, while one side can force another into litigation. Clearly some situations are more suited to mediation than others, where a legal route is necessary, or at least to go some way down the legal route, to work out strength of case etc. However, in relationship conflicts, ie family and workplace, I would like to see it being generally accepted that mediation is the default, unless there is a really good reason not to.

How do you relax?

Time with my children, time with friends, walking my dog, wild swimming, running, yoga, qi gong, reading, listening to music.

Joanna Gosling joined Irwin Mitchell as a Senior Associate and Mediator in September 2023.