@TheLawSociety: Law Society president @lubnashuja tells @NewLawJournal , as we respond to proposals for #divorcing couples.

The Lord Chancellor Dominic Raab announced proposals this week for mandatory mediation for divorcing couples before an application can be made to court for most private law children cases and contested financial remedy cases. Refusal to mediate would result in costs sanctions. The mediation would be fully funded for children cases. The government is seeking views on how compulsory mediation for financial remedy cases should be funded.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) consultation, Supporting earlier resolution of private family law arrangements, notes that, while the government’s mediation voucher scheme has had a 69% success rate (13,500 families since its launch in March 2021), about 55,000 families end up in the family courts each year, often with ‘protracted proceedings that put prolonged stress on all involved’. Consequently, it aims to ‘empower judges to hold accountable those who do not engage seriously with mediation, and who draw proceedings out unnecessarily’.

The consultation closes on 15 June.

However, family lawyer David Burrows, solicitor-advocate & NLJ columnist, said: ‘I was involved in setting up the first “conciliation service” in Bristol in the 1970s.

‘We always assumed it would be government-funded, and voluntary—obviously. Mediation helps couples to reach agreement. By definition that cannot be forced. The government needs to put much more money into publicising and then running any scheme. It has never done this more than quarter-heartedly.’

Law Society president Lubna Shuja said: ‘The best way to get couples into mediation is to provide them with early legal advice, but the government has not taken this on board.

Read more: https://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/content/could-mandatory-mediation-clear-the-backlog