For Tony Dempsey and David Vaux, a partnership formed on the football field has turned into a significant new business venture in the legal space.

"David was the team manager and I was the coach. Last year we had a good year and made the grand final," notes Dempsey.

So good, in fact, that both Dempsey and Vaux have taken their football inspired partnership one step further: they've recently launched a unique new dispute resolution service known as WISDOMdr that aims to take the retired judges out of a mediator chair and replace them with "captains of industry".

Such captains will pair up with experienced ADR practitioners to assist the two parties of a dispute to come to a solution.

And such captains also have, at least in some cases, a loose connection to the footy field. With around 25 key industry champions on board, Dempsey will not reveal the names of the individuals but he's not shy in declaring that his sporting history has assisted in securing such contacts.

Dempsey, a former professional Rugby Union player and Clayton Utz lawyer, played an instrumental role in rugby union's move to professionalism in Australia and founded the Rugby Union Players Association.

Not to be outdone by Dempsey's credentials, Vaux brings a significant amount of commercial experience to the partnership, having owned a number of businesses in the past and dealt with his own share of disputes in the process.

From their own experiences, both believe that ADR can be done better and the key is to bring in the "captains of industry" - key business leaders who have been there, and done all that.

"We believe a more solution-orientated process to a dispute could be found by using business leaders, high-profile men and women who have been exposed to lots of negotiation, lots of deal-making and lots of commercial disputes in a large scale variety," said Dempsey.

"We're not advocating not having lawyers present; we're advocating an alternative offering to that of having ex-judges as mediators."

In doing so, Dempsey believes more "happy" solutions can be met. "In other words, a solution that … [leaves] both parties walking away with a feeling of strong contentment because the solution may involve aspects they may not have thought of without the depth of commercial expertise of our captains of industry."

- Angela Priestley