Danielle Hutchinson

Overview

Danielle Hutchinson is a cross-disciplinary innovator and global expert in dispute resolution working at the intersection of law, psychology and behavioural economics. Her work spans the development of practitioner capability, innovation and reform in legal settings, and the integration of behavioural insights into the way professionals work together under pressure.

Danielle has advised global institutions, including the United Nations International Labor Office, the Association of Mediators Ukraine, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (USA), the California State Bar, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and Australia’s Fair Work Commission. She also played a central role in the Global Pound Conference series — a 23-country initiative exploring the future of dispute resolution and access to justice, delivered in partnership with commercial leaders such as Shell, Herbert Smith Freehills, PwC, JAMS, SIDRA, CEDR, and Vlerick University. Most recently, and alongside Emma-May Litchfield, she led the review of Australia’s National Mediator Accreditation System (NMAS Review 2020–22), creating the world’s first empirically derived professional practice standards for mediators. Danielle has subsequently been engaged by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators to develop a similar world-first model for arbitrators.

Currently, Danielle is Scholar in Residence at the International Mediation Institute and consults to the Treaty Authority — a pioneering, independent body in Victoria led by First Peoples and grounded in Aboriginal Culture, Lore and Law. The Treaty Authority serves as the ‘umpire’ for Treaty-making in Victoria. She also teaches at UNSW, is recognised as a global leader in neurodiversity and dispute resolution, and serves as Chief Data Scientist for InnovADR, the world’s first platform for third-party funded mediation. In 2023, Danielle’s passion for innovation culminated in her being granted a 25-year patent for her AI-based dispute triage tool. Danielle is completing doctoral studies in behavioural economics at the Centre for Negotiation within the HHL Business School in Leipzig, Germany. As a former educator turned lawyer and mediator, Danielle brings a rare combination of warmth, intellectual rigour and lived insight to one of the toughest questions in professional life: how do we work better, together, when it matters most?