Advantages of Family Mediation

You remain in control of everything that is said on your behalf. If you express yourself in a way which quite unintentionally upsets your former partner, you can see their reaction for yourself and clarify what you meant. If your former partner misinterprets something said in a letter or document prepared by your solicitor, you may never even know.

Conversely, you may be in a far better position to decide whether you are satisfied by your former partner's explanation and consider what, if any, further details may be required to confirm the position, if you are dealing with them face-to-face.

You can clarify factual misunderstandings there and then. If there is an unexplained transaction in your bank statements, or a typographical error in your schedule of outgoings, you can deal with it immediately, rather than waiting for your former partner's solicitors to write to your solicitors asking them to write back explaining the position once they have taken your instructions.

Even if mediation does not result in an agreement, it can often shorten the lengthy process of financial disclosure by enabling questions to be asked and answered, and requests for documentary proof of any explanation provided, to be made on the spot. Mediation is not, however, a substitute for full financial disclosure supported by documentary evidence.

There may be a very good reason why a particular arrangement would work for you which may not be typical of the arrangements which might be imposed by the Court. You may wish to take account of factors which the Judge may not attach as much weight as you would wish. Fundamentally, do you wish the arrangements, which may well affect the rest of your life, to have been discussed and modified in as much detail as they require, or be based upon the Judge's understanding of your priorities, as explained to him by your lawyers, in the limited time which the Court has set aside.

If you and your former partner have reached an agreement in principle, you may not have considered every possible eventuality which can arise in the future. Mediation may help you to agree what should happen in situations which commonly occur following separation but which may not have occurred to you.

At the other end of the scale, an agreement may seem impossible so that the alternative of being told what to do may feel quite attractive. By encouraging you to examine one aspect at a time, it may be possible for the mediator to break the problem up into manageable proportions which can often reveal an overall solution.

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