Family Law in Crisis.

According to The Australian of 11 December 2015, independent Senators John Madigan and David Leyonhjelm are among a group of senators who have called for a "root-and-branch review" of the family law system. Senator Madigan has been pushing for a radical overview of the system to make it less adversarial in nature, arguing the current system is causing "inexcusable damage" to children.

Senator Madigan urged the government to "adequately resource the court to deal with things in a more expedient manner and have people in it who are properly trained".

He said "the court needs to be better resourced than what it is and people operating in the area of family law need to be trained in this area".

Senator Madigan also wanted to see the court operate in a way that brought families together , rather than "blew them apart".

Senator Leyonhjelm said: "You can't expect a court system to operate for the benefit of the public if they have to wait extended periods of time because there aren't enough judges. That's a no -brainer."

Clearly the court has a resource problem.However good steps in reducing the current pressure would be to refer more matters to mediation, particularly those with modest pools and to introduce compulsory mediation of property matters before parties are able to initiate court proceedings.

It will be interesting to see how far the independent senators get with their call for "root-and -branch review".

Travel to Mediation

It was pleasant yesterday to travel to Ipwich to conduct a mediation involving both property and children's issues.

Parties often don't realise that mediators are usually prepared to travel to suit the convenience of the parties.

In this case both parties lived in the vicinity of Ipswich and both legal representatives were based in Ipswich.

Sometimes depending on distance, some charge may be made for travelling time, however with the mediation being convened as close by as Ipswich, it was easy to make a decision to waive any charge for travelling time and mileage.

While it is always good to have the facilities on offer at our usual rooms on Wickham Terrace, in this instance a decision was made for the mediation to proceed at the chambers of local barristers and the rooms and facilities more than sufficed.

The gesture of chambers to provide lunch was greatly appreciated and the sandwiches both plentiful and well received by the parties, their representatives and of course the mediator.

At Brisbane Mediations we often travel to undertake mediation and are always happy to consider a request to do so.

Not only did the day provide a welcome change to our normal routine but I am pleased to report that with the help of both representatives, the parties were able to reach agreement on all issues.

As they say, in the usual parlance, a successful day was had by all.

The father's solicitor will now prepare consent orders which the representatives will jointly submit to the court for approval.

With the Court's approval almost guaranteed due to the reasonableness of the agreement reached, the parties are a long way in front in terms of legal costs and avoiding the long delays that are an everyday feature of a court system that is quite simply breaking under the load.

I look forward to the next opportunity to travel into the regions to assist parties to resolve their dispute.

Why not invite us out to your place for your next mediation.