“Promoting accredited mediators, advertising on prime-time television, and greater endorsement by solicitors and judges are some of the initiatives being discussed as part of this year’s Family Mediation Week to encourage greater take-up of this alternative dispute resolution process.
Starting today, the annual fixture gives law firms, mediators, and other organisations the opportunity to raise awareness of mediation with events taking place throughout the UK.
Mediation is known to be a quicker, cheaper, and less stressful means of resolving disputes with parties given more control over the process. But despite changes in the law, including compulsory mediation information assessment meetings, it is still not getting as much traction as supporters believe it deserves.
Over in Covent Garden, Family Law in Partnership’s team of fourteen mediators is offering free half-hour mediation sessions for new mediation clients. The firm said it is also happy to speak to family lawyers about the benefits of family mediation and how it could be used to resolve the many and various family issues that their clients face.
Ruth Smallacombe, a mediator and family consultant at FLiP, said the firm fully supported Family Mediation Week but called on family lawyers and the courts to be ‘more rigorous in considering family mediation to resolve disputes’.
‘They should be encouraging family mediation at an earlier stage to ensure that the parties don’t get fixed into negotiating stances which make finding a solution more and more difficult. All family mediators and organisations should do more to promote the benefits of mediation, even advertising its benefits on prime-time TV, as a cost-effective and extremely flexible process.’”
At Family Law in Partnership we have a market leading family mediation practice. We have been ranked top tier for family mediation by Legal 500 UK 2015 and 2016 and are the only top tier ranked firm in this field. We have two of the most experienced family mediators in the country – Dominic Raeside and Ruth Smallacombe – supported by a team of twelve lawyer/mediators. We also offer direct child consultation (mediation with children) and the commercial model of mediation where this appropriate too.
For more information on our mediation practice click here or view our mediation brochure.
If you would like to find out more about how mediation can help you, please call Dominic Raeside, Head of Mediation, or Ruth Smallacombe.
T: 020 7420 5000