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Mediation Matters: Planning ahead for seasonal family law trends
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How quickly does a new year resolution flop? In an
article I wrote for
Mediation Matters last month I explained one of my aspirations for 2016 related to the approach of our family court judges. In view of the successful National Family Mediation 'At-Court Mediation' government-funded pilot project the hope was that judges would become much more willing to embrace mediation using the powers they already have to direct people who come before courts towards alternative means of settling disputes.
No sooner had the ink dried on that article than a new set of data was released that backed the validity of the aspiration while seeming to confirm the family courts as a whole are nowhere near achieving it; or even getting close to the starting line.
Figures from Cafcass showed new private law cases in December 2015
rose by 12 per cent compared with a year earlier.
November 2015 had seen a similar increase over its corresponding 2014 month.
Now on the one hand the rise in applications shown by these two sets of figures could be said to simply represent parents...
Read the full article here.
