Alan has been an accredited labour mediator since 1988. In January 2008 he was trained by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) on commercial mediation. He has upheld the principles of mediation – dignity, equality, fairness and diversity – over a number of years.Alan has written extensively on mediation (Managing conflict in schools (LexisNexis Butterworths Toronto 2007(with R Jacobson); Mediation: Principles, Process & Practice (1997) Butterworths (with L Boulle); and on sexual harassment mediation in Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Law, Policies and Processes (2005) LexisNexis Butterworths (with R le Roux and T Orleyn).Alan was admitted as a solicitor of the High Court of South Africa in 1976. In 1985 he was appointed Commissioner of the Small Claims Court.

He was an accredited mediator and arbitrator under the auspices of the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa (IMSSA). He was appointed Ad-hoc Member of the Industrial Court in 1994. He was also appointed part time senior commissioner of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). He has established and appointed chairperson of AIM (African Initiative for Mediation).Alan has been employed in a University context for 25 years; designing courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. In particular he has designed courses on dispute resolution at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

He is currently the Co-ordinator of the LLM Programmes which involves the oversight of promotion of the programmes, administration, staffing, budgets, quality assurance and so on. It also involves anticipating training needs. He has developed training courses for LLM students on research skills and for law teachers on supervision skills. For the Employment Equity office of the university he developed a training course on sexual harassment mediation. In 1995 he was awarded the first Distinguished Teacher’s Award presented at the University of Natal. He has developed a keen interest in and commitment to appropriate teaching and assessment methodology.