Dawn Goodman

Dawn Goodman is a senior lawyer in the trust, estate and inheritance disputes team at Withers LLP in London, and was named ADR Lawyer of the Year in the United Kingdom at the 2024 Corporate INTL Global Awards. The recognition reflects both her standing as a contentious trusts specialist and her long commitment to resolving disputes through alternative means rather than the courtroom alone.

A CEDR-accredited mediator, Dawn Goodman is well placed to help families, beneficiaries, trustees and their advisers find negotiated solutions to some of the most sensitive and emotionally charged disputes in private wealth. Alternative dispute resolution is particularly valuable in trust and succession matters, where relationships between the parties are often familial and enduring, and where a settlement that preserves those relationships and protects privacy is frequently preferable to protracted and public litigation. Her mediation practice draws on decades of front-line experience of how such disputes arise, how they escalate and how they can be brought to a close on terms the parties can live with.

Dawn Goodman has specialised in trust litigation for more than thirty years and is one of the most experienced practitioners in the field. She was the first litigator admitted to the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners and a founding member of the Association of Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists, on whose panel she sits. She is also the author and co-editor of a leading text on international trust and divorce litigation, reflecting a career spent at the cutting edge of cross-border private wealth disputes. Her professional qualifications extend across several jurisdictions, underlining the international character of her work.

Her work regularly involves disputes among beneficiaries, trustees, protectors and family offices, often spanning multiple jurisdictions and legal traditions, including matters where common law, civil law and religious principles of succession must be reconciled. That breadth of experience gives her a keen sense of where cases can be resolved by agreement and where the interests of the parties are best served by a structured, facilitated negotiation. It is this judgement, honed over many years of litigation, that makes her an effective mediator as well as an advocate.

Recognised in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame for contentious trust and succession work and ranked among the leading names for private wealth disputes, Dawn Goodman combines deep technical authority with a practical, resolution-focused approach. As the courts and clients alike place growing emphasis on settling disputes efficiently and privately, her expertise in alternative dispute resolution has become increasingly valuable. The 2024 ADR award celebrates that blend of expertise and pragmatism, and her contribution to settling high-stakes trust and estate disputes through mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution.