Mediation Matters: Let professional mediators and solicitors work together so mediation thrives

When the Government’s Family Mediation Task Force report was published early in July a chorus of disapproval was heard from the solicitor sector. This was slightly surprising given the lawyer-dominated make-up of the Task Force itself a group that had been set up by the Justice Minister to explore ways of reversing the disastrous post-LASPO crash in the take-up of mediation.
It’s easy for those of us working in professional mediation to wish for more central money to be invested in to our work. So there was a welcome from many mediators for the recommendation of publicly-funded MIAMs and an increase in the fee paid to mediators for MIAMs for a set period. We’d all welcome more championing and marketing of mediation from Government too; after all the Government tells us it wants mediation to thrive.

But other measures aired by the Task Force potentially have a far greater long-term impact on our profession and on the ability of mediation to truly recover from the devastating impact of the last 18...