Michael Murray

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT MICHAEL MURRAY

Too often small business do not get treated fairly by other business, individuals or insurers etc, often they do not have the deep pockets or access to resources and lawyers etc to compete, sometimes others use practices and/or tactics that may not be ethical or even legal, for example, withholding money owed or seizing property. But what do you about it? Solicitors and Barristers can be expensive and you know that if you go to Court for a dispute worth less than you won’t recover your costs even if you win, with in most financial disputes. Insurers may be able to assist, but policies will contain terms and conditions determining and limiting cover, you may find yourself having to wait while insurers consider if they we assist or pay out on a claim you make and very often the disputes I have dealt with have been with insurers over covering claims. If a lawyer is not a commercially viable option for you and if insurance is not any help, then what? I spent 10 years working in the legal and Insurance sector, watching too many clients falling into exactly this ‘gap’ and I wanted to be about to do more about it that I could, within the confines of the roles I had. Eventually I decided I could do something to help, to try to level the playing field if you like. So I set up Dispute Assist in an attempt to create an affordable, accessible and sustainable business to help clients not just deal with these sort of disputes when the come up but to help prevent them arising in the first place and where that is not possible, help my clients be as best prepared for them as they can be. Through Dispute Assist I try and do this in 3 main ways: 1. I help deal with existing finacial disputes; either by working with a client to try and resolve the dispute in their favour against the other parties involved, or by acting as an independent mediator between all the parties to a dispute to help them try to find an acceptable resolution. Because Prevention is always better than a cure, I work with clients at the contracting stage, to make sure the contracts they use are; in writing, and are clear, fair and appropriate, this can prevent the majority of disputes ever arising 3. I also work with businesses to analyse, manage and reduce the risks they face such as data protection risks and cyber crime issues, as well as more fundamental issues such as record keeping and staff training and oversight, to seek to reduce the chances of disputes arising and to ensure businesses are prepared in the event they do.