Personal bio
Lawrence Schäfer is a past Chairman of the South African Branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.
Lawrence has a commercial practice, with a specific focus on technology, mining, insurance, banking, construction, and shareholder disputes. Industry-specific experience includes e-tolling, last-mile fibre, concentrating solar-thermal power, Johannesburg Stock Exchange listing requirements, and various aspects of mining (most notably coal). He has been instructed in relation to litigation in various South African courts and in England and the British Virgin Islands, and in domestic and international commercial arbitrations. He sits as an arbitrator and adjudicator,.
Before joining the Bar, Lawrence taught for two colleges of the University of Oxford and was an academic post-holder at two other British Universities. He taught on an ad hoc basis in Istanbul, Beirut and Moscow, and held consultancies for the National Democratic Institute (Washington D.C.) and the International Development Law Organisation (Rome).
Lawrence read law at Rhodes University and at Oxford University as a Commonwealth Scholar, and also an organ scholar.