According to recent reports both England and Wales seem to be trying to pass legislation that mandates mediation and takes government legal funding away from divorce cases. According to the Ministry of Justice and Legal Services Commission, as many as 350,000 cases are currently receiving legal aid. The government wants to reduce that by 75% with the implementation of mandatory mediation from the inception of the case especially applicable to those cases involving children and custody and time-sharing arrangements. That is an investment of around 20 million pounds into mandatory mediation and a savings of about 173 million pounds. Watch the video here…
Woo hoo! Go Mediation! I love it because this shows a real shift in thinking. There will be some cases where the courts are the only answer – and the ones cited are usually domestic violence or one where social services are involved for the children or some other sort of ongoing investigation. But the point is to narrow down those cases to the more extreme and get the majority of cases into a process that encourages a work-together attitude and positive co-parenting as opposed to an intensely adversarial process.
As you know, here in Florida, mediation is a mandated part of the divorce process. I wish it was mandated earlier in the process before the adversarial nature of litigation really sets in. Once people file papers, more often than not their feet are firmly entrenched and they do not entertain a mediative mindset – notwithstanding the fact that many people’s understanding of mediation is limited, in part, because of the adversarial mindset that has deep roots in our psyche as to how to solve our problems. John Sturrock, QC, an attorney, discusses how much better mediation is for the human condition than litigation and why he prefers it to court advocacy. He really gets to the heart of the matter when he says that at this stage of our human journey when it comes to relationships, mediation is a far more advanced, human way to restore, reconcile and deal with human relationships than the adversarial system.
A further report/video titled, Court a ‘disaster’ in divorce, indicates that the policy behind the implementation of this mandatory mediation legislation is not only to save money but to encourage a process that works – mandated or not – precisely because we have learned that courts cannot go into the detail needed in crafting custody arrangements and the needs of the children as mediation can. The interviewer even notes that this is truly a situation where saving money and the way we do things as a society may go together! Furthermore, the evidence suggests that at least 70% of cases settle in mediation and then the people re-refer themselves post-divorce when issues need further fine-tuning. Exactly what I know to be true from my own experience with mediation. Check out that video here…
This report is good news and these videos help me believe that somewhere in the world the people are realizing that the adversarial system may not be the best process for families. We need to cherish our families as they are the cornerstone of our society and world. Cherish means to protect and support not to break and abandon. Mediation is not there to change your decision about whether or not to divorce but to help communication and to help people repair relations so that communication can occur and be effective. Don’t think mediation is supposed to be a cure-all or a magic pill. It is a process that is often emotional, intense, draining, and sometimes painful but it works. People who have been through good mediation know this to be true.