Early Career

John Sturrock studied at the University of Edinburgh from 1976 to 1980, graduating with a First Class Honours degree in Law.

He served as Senior President of the Students Association and President of the Students Representative Council in 1980-81. In that position, he was a member of the University of Edinburgh governing bodies, the Court and Senate.

He was one of the last legal apprentices in Scotland in 1981-3. While undertaking his apprenticeship, he established the Edinburgh Legal Group which welcomed a number of distinguished guests including the late senior judge, Lord Cameron, and the author of A Sense of Freedom, former prisoner, Jimmy Boyle.

After a short period in a litigation department in an Edinburgh law firm, in 1984 he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship by the Commonwealth Fund of New York and studied for a Masters’ degree in international law (LLM) at the University of Pennsylvania in 1984-5. He travelled extensively in the USA at that time.

In 1985, in Philadelphia, he and his wife, Fiona, established an Alumni Office for the University of Edinburgh Development Campaign.

John Sturrock was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates (the Scottish Bar) in 1986 after devilling (pupillage) to Ronald Mackay QC (now Lord Eassie), Matthew Clarke QC (now Lord Clarke) and Gordon Jackson QC. He had a busy practice as junior counsel, including as Standing Junior Counsel to the UK Department of Transport. His work included commercial contracts, intellectual property, construction projects, property, valuation for rating purposes, personal injury claims, professional negligence and general civil work. He appeared as junior counsel in the Inner House (Scotland’s civil appeal court) and the House of Lords (now the Supreme Court).

Advocacy Training

 John Sturrock took time out from practice at the Bar in 1993 to travel to the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to explore advocacy skills training on behalf of the Faculty of Advocates. His subsequent report led to his appointment in 1994 as the first Director of Training and Education at the Scottish Bar, a post he held from 1994 to 2002.  

During that time, he established the Scottish Bar’s world leading and award-winning advocacy skills programme, liaising with leaders in the field from around the world with whom he worked closely. The project was named The Best Use of Training in the 1996 Lawyer Awards. Many members of the Bar and, from 1996 all new advocates, have undertaken the skills training which was introduced as a result.

As a member of the Judicial Studies Committee from 1997-2003, he also designed and delivered for a number of years the first skills training courses for Scottish judges.

John was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1999.

Negotiation and Mediation

John trained in negotiation at Harvard University under Professor Roger Fisher (co-author of Getting to Yes) and was accredited as a mediator with CEDR, both in 1996.

He left active practice at the Scottish Bar in 2002, and has since pursued a full-time career as a mediator, facilitator, trainer, negotiation specialist and coach. He is regularly referred to as one of the leading mediators in the UK and has been described by Who’s Who Legal as a “Global Elite Thought Leader” in the field. As a mediator, he is recognised internationally and he has acted as mediator in many hundreds of disputes and differences in the UK, mainland Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

He was the Founder and Senior Mediator at Core Solutions in Scotland and a door tenant and mediator at Brick Court Chambers in London. He has also been a member of the Singapore International Mediation Centre Panel of Mediators and a Member of UK Sport Resolutions Panel of Mediators.

He has pioneered the use of mediation in government, commerce, industry, the professions, sport, the public sector, senior management and other sensitive and complex matters in Scotland and elsewhere and has facilitated many high-level dialogues.

John Sturrock has also been noted as "one of the best teachers of mediation" and has specialised in negotiation, mediation and conflict management and resolution training and coaching for senior government officials, business executives, lawyers and other professionals and sports leaders.

He is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators, at whose conferences he is a regular speaker and whose Spring Conference in Edinburgh in 2018 he devised, hosted and chaired, culminating in an event at the Scottish Parliament addressed by the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and world authority on negotiation and mediation, William Ury (co-author of the seminal Getting to Yes). He has been responsible for bringing other globally renowned figures in the field of conflict resolution, such as Kenneth Cloke and Peter Adler, to Scotland.

John Sturrock has worked with UK Sport, the English Institute of Sport, Sportscotland, and many other sports’ governing bodies and athletes for a number of years. He was particularly active with UK Sport in the lead up to the London Olympics and Paralympics in 2012, acting as mediator and facilitator in a number of medal-winning sports.

He has been a regular speaker at the American Bar Association Dispute Resolution Conference and has been involved in many other international initiatives, including as the co-host of a keynote seminar at the launch of the Singapore International Mediation Centre in 2014, a key note speaker at a major conference on dispute resolution in New Zealand in 2015, leading workshops for justice officials in Turkey in 2015, addressing students and professionals at the University of Florence in 2016 and leading training work in Kenya for South Sudanese church leaders, on conflict resolution and reconciliation, in 2016 and 2017.

He was significantly involved in the founding of the Church of Scotland’s mediation initiative, Place for Hope.

From 2020, John has helped to lead the World Mediators’ Alliance on Climate Change which promotes the Mediators’ Green Pledge.

Governments, Parliaments and Politics

For many years, John Sturrock has worked with senior civil servants and various parliamentary bodies throughout the UK (including the Westminster, Welsh and Scottish Parliaments and the Northern Ireland and London Assemblies) training members, committees and others on effective scrutiny of policy. He works regularly with senior officials and ministers at the Scottish Government on policy and other issues.

In 2015-7, he was a special adviser on dialogue to the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. He has trained Cabinet Office officials in London.

He has been active in climate change issues, facilitating the 2020 Climate Change Delivery Group in Scotland from 2009 to 2013 and chairing an event for the Scottish Government at the COP19 conference in Copenhagen.

In 2013, John was the principal founder of Collaborative Scotland (www.collaborativescotland.org), an initiative to bring respectful dialogue to Scottish politics and public affairs, especially in the run up to the 2014 independence referendum. He is the author of its Commitment to Respectful Dialogue and has championed non-partisan respectful dialogue in various events and in writing for a number of years.

Other activities

John has been a regular article writer for The Scotsman law pages for twenty years and has been a regular commentator in The Times newspaper and other journals.

He was named Specialist of the Year at the Scottish Legal Awards in 2003 and Mediator of the Year at the Law Awards of Scotland in 2009. 

He was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from Edinburgh Napier University in 2010.

He was recognised as a Civil Mediation Council (CMC) Fellow in 2021.

He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde Law School and in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. 

He is a frequent contributor of chapters to books on mediation (for example, Essays on Mediation: Dealing with Disputes in the 21st Century, published by Wolters Kluwer in 2016 and Practical mediation: A Guide for Mediators and Others, by Jonathan Dingle with John Sephton, published by Law Brief Publishing in 2017)

He has published the books Thinking Differently: Making a Difference Using Mediation, in 2010, and two volumes of A Mediators’ Musings on Mediation, Negotiation, Politics and a Changing World, in 2020 and 2022.

In 2019 -20 he acted as facilitator of the Scottish Leaders Forum Strategic Leadership Group.

In 2019, he co-chaired an Expert Group under the auspices of Scottish Mediation which produced an important report entitled “Bringing Mediation into the Mainstream”.

In 2019-21, he served on the Stewarding Group of the first-ever Citizens Assembly in Scotland.

In 2019, John Sturrock conducted a review for the Cabinet Secretary for Health in Scotland, into allegations of bullying in NHS Highland. His well-received report is frequently cited for its insights into leadership and culture in large organisations.