Julia Burns is a contentious private client mediator through her own practice, Dove in the Room. She has extensive experience mediating inheritance, trust and estate disputes for high-net-worth families, trustees, charities and professional advisers. Qualifying as a solicitor in 2005, she has specialised in contentious private client work since 2007, including six years at a leading national law firm. Julia founded Dove in the Room in 2019 to provide a calm, discreet and constructive way for clients to resolve high-value and emotionally charged disputes outside court.
She also co-mediates complex, multi-party cases as a founder of Inheritance Co-Mediation, a model particularly effective for high-value family and trust disputes. In addition, Julia works as a conflict coach, helping families and private individuals navigate sensitive succession issues with clarity and insight.
Julia combines legal expertise with a deep understanding of the emotional and relational dynamics that underpin family wealth and legacy. She describes her mediation style as that of an “empathetic provocateur”, bringing calm authority and appropriate challenge to help parties address difficult issues and reach workable outcomes all parties can live with.
Julia was shortlisted for Civil & Commercial Mediator of the Year at the 2022 National Mediation Awards.
