Dear ICANN Community,

My name is Chris LaHatte, and I am ICANN’s new Ombudsman.

I will be available online to assist and facilitate the ICANN community as the organization faces many challenges from the gTLD expansion, the huge growth in Internet use in the developing world, and the cultural interplay and resolution from new participants in ICANN.

I am an experienced mediator and lawyer and have practiced in New Zealand, Taiwan and Central Asia. I qualified as a lawyer from the University of Auckland and earned a Masters Degree in Dispute Resolution from Massey University, with judicial settlement conferences as my thesis. I am a Fellow of the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand, a mediator for the New Zealand Law Society on cost issues and a construction law adjudicator.

After practising as a barrister for many years, I have come to see alternative dispute resolution as the most effective tool in dealing with conflict. I have presented papers and written articles about aspects of dispute resolution and other matters and I am an author for Thompson Reuters on court procedure.

Outside of this, I am the husband of Mandy, a schoolteacher, and the father of three teenage children, and I practice my conflict resolution skills on them.

I look forward to serving you, the ICANN Community. Please don’t hesitate to contact me at ombudsman@ICANN.org.