Susan Tay Ting Lan

About Susan

Susan Tay is a Director at OTP Law Corporation, a mediator, mediation advocate, family lawyer and parenting coordinator.

Susan’s 30 odd years in practice as a lawyer focused on family and matrimonial law, shareholders’ disputes and litigation, conveyancing and real property including trust law.

In 2016, Susan trained and successfully completed the requisite courses and became an accredited mediator of Singapore Mediation Centre and a certified mediator with Singapore International Mediation Institute.

Susan also participated as part of a pioneering group of senior family law practitioners who were trained as parenting coordinators through a program run by the Family Justice Courts, Singapore. Susan was assigned one of Singapore’s 1^st 3 parenting coordinating cases from the Family Justice Courts.  The work of these parenting coordinators is worthy as going forward, they serve to manage ongoing issues in high conflict custody and access cases.

February 2017, Susan was appointed to the Community Justice Centre’s panel of Primary Justice Lawyers. In 2021, she joined a group of 8 lawyers to form the pioneer panel of neutral evaluators for family disputes with the Law Society of Singapore.

A continuing effort to shape the practice, Susan is looking to actively present mediation as a viable option in dispute resolution to her clients and to the wider community together with outreach partners.

Susan has received advanced training in Family Mediations and specialised training for cross-border family mediation with MiKK e.V. International Mediation Centre for Family Conflict and Child Abduction, Berlin, Germany.

Susan currently mediates with the following organisations:

• Thailand Arbitration Centre
• the Singapore Mediation Centre;
• the Family Panel of Singapore Mediation Centre;
• MiKK e.V International Mediation Centre for Family Conflict and Child Abduction;
• the Law Society Mediation Scheme with the Law Society of Singapore;
• the Family Panel of the Law Society Mediation Scheme; and
• PracticeForte Mediation.

The effectiveness of Susan as a mediator, especially in the resolutions of family disputes, need be seen only from the success rate of her cases. Two thirds of the cases that Susan has mediated or co-mediated involved cross border marriages. As at the end of 2019, all her cases resulted in a settlement of terms, many culminating in Consent Orders before the Courts. Those mediations went on for no more than a day.

4 examples of the mediated settlements include:

• Divorced couples who could not enforce terms relating to the disposal of their matrimonial flat that were already recorded as Order of Court with the Family Courts of Singapore 6 months before mediation. Settlement was reached after a 9.5 hour co-mediation session on the same day.
• Asian couple in a hotly contested case for assets in divorce proceedings with allegations of criminal acts. This matter was settled after a co-mediation session of 14 hours on the same day.
• Bi-national couple in a contested case for access to child, assets and maintenance where injunction was taken out in the divorce proceedings. This matter was settled after a 10 hour mediation on the same day. Susan was the sole mediator.
• Multi-national parents trying to work out access to a child who is the subject matter of a Hague Convention (International Child Abduction) application. This co-mediation was conducted with the Thailand Arbitration Centre in Bangkok and after years of litigation, parties managed to agree on the access arrangements in that 7 hour session over just one set of fees.

In 2020, despite  Covid-19 restrictions, Susan continues mediating using an online platform, averaging 1 online mediation session  a month.

Susan is a firm believer and a strong supporter of PracticeForte’s twin pillar focus of Building Peace, Building Expertise. Together with the co-founder of PracticeForte Pte Ltd, Mylene Chua, they hope to build a network of mediators across the world, promoting the peace approach to resolving disputes.

A little whirlwind blows about her as Susan tries to find time for her passion in sports. A creator of many worlds, she dreams to build her miniature Maharajah’s Palace and to hold an exhibition of all her miniature pieces. She has completed 3.

Susan sharing her experience as a family lawyer, mediator and co-founder of PracticeForte & OTP Law Corporation with students from Eramus University Rotterdam.

Conference/Seminars/Papers

• 27 April 2017: Moderator at the Seminar on Financial Manipulation in Matrimonial Cases jointly organised by The Law Society of Singapore and PracticeForte Pte Ltd.
• 27 July 2017: Speaker at the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) along with Eden Law Corporation and PracticeForte Pte Ltd to talk about issues arising from Hague Convention and also to introduce an initiative called Project Relocation
• 1 March 2018: Speaker at the PracticeForte Advisory Community Law Series of Training.
• 13 August 2018– Speaker at the Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines on Project Relocation
• 13 November 2018-Speaker at SCWO for Project Relocation
• 2018-2019– Bi-monthly “Divorce and You” Talks with Law Society Pro Bono Services
• 10 October 2019– Family and Estate Law with the TProject and Law Society Pro Bono Services
• 16 Oct 2019- Trainer at Masterclass on Cross Border Mediation with Asian Law Students Association (ALSA)
• 30 July 2020– Speaker at Singapore Mediation Centre webinar on “Hague Convention Mediation – Expecting the Unexpected” about experiences and tools used as a mediator for Hague Convention parental child abduction cases
• 2 September 2020 – Speaker at webinar co-organised by PracticeForte Pte Ltd and the Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines on “Going Global, Staying Local” for university students and practitioners in the Philippines about small professional practices crossing borders and disciplines
• 22 October 2020– Moderator at “Intercultural Competence” webinar with PracticeForte Pte Ltd
• 26 October 2020 – Panellist at “Divorce and You” webinar with Law Society Pro Bono Services
• 18^th December 2020-Panelist for an online roundtable discussion on Prospects and Developments on Intercultural/International Mediation and ADR Mechanisms organised by San Sebastian College – Recoletos Manila Graduate School of Law
• 29^th Jan 2021 – Webinar on International Family Law Mediation with THAC
• 27^th February 2021– ALSA 0N TOP Speaker and workshop on “Take your leadership to the next level: Be a Mindful Leader.”
• 23^rd March 2021 – Moderator for The Introduction of Family Mediation in Thailand with THAC
• 27 Aug 2021 – Guest Sharing on Cross Vorder Family mediation at MiKK-Osaka University  Alumni Meeting

Recent Family Law Articles Published

• Therapeutic Resolution Outside the Courts Pre-Writ Part 1
• Therapeutic Justice In Family Cases: The Neutral Evaluator, Part 6
• Therapeutic Justice in Family Cases – The Lawyer (Part 2)
• Therapeutic Justice in Family Cases (Part 1)
• The Split After The Split – Part 1

Others

• Guest on 938 Now radio show sharing on  divorce proceedings in Singapore and PF Restructure, the peach approach.
• Host of “1^st Port of Call” podcast series with PracticeForte Pte Ltd where I interviewed different professional on why they are the 1^st port of call for their clients. These professionals include private investigators, lawyers, counsellors, medical disputes consultants
• “1^st Port of Call” podcast series with PracticeForte Pte Ltd where I was interviewed as a family lawyer.