• Is mediation compulsory? Do I have to go to mediation?

  

  Legal terms can be confusing. Family Dispute Resolution is the name that the Family Court uses to describe mediation. Mediators are known as FDR Practitioners. I am an accredited FDR Practitioner with the Australian Attorney-General’s Department.
  
  When you can’t agree on how you’ll split up your money or share the parenting of your children after you separate, you can come to mediation (Family Dispute Resolution) to try and reach agreement. You’ll have much stronger chance of avoiding the cost and hurt that the legal process often causes if you do.

What can you talk about at Family Dispute Resolution?

Anything you and your ex-partner need to discuss. For example:

See more on any of these on the property settlement or parenting plans pages of this website.

What are the steps involved?

1. You call me and we arrange a pre-mediation session. This is where I meet with you in private for 60-90 minutes and discuss your case. I hear your point of view and you tell me what you’re hoping to get out of the mediation.  We invite your ex-partner to come along and I arrange to meet and talk to them in private too.
   
   
2. At your individual meetings we’ll talk about the best way to run the mediation – with both of you in person in my rooms, perhaps each of you in separate rooms (called a “shuttle mediation”) or with one of you on the phone or a videoconferencing link. I’m required under Family Court Legislation to decide after meeting both parties if the case is suitable for mediation. Not all matters are suitable.
   
   
3. If the matter is suitable, we arrange a time for what we call a “joint session” which usually goes for 2 to 3 hours.  Read my tips on how to prepare for a joint mediation session on either parenting or property.
   
   
4. At the joint session I ask each of you to say a few words about what you are hoping to get out of the mediation, and then we come up with an agenda of the issues. We start talking about the issues and as we come up with agreements we capture them in writing. It is very important that nothing gets written on the board unless you both agree 100% with every word.
   
   
5. There are breaks in the mediation where you can check in with me in private – it is important to me that I know you are comfortable with how things are going and not feeling pressured or bullied to agree to something that you’re not happy with.
   
   
6. You may reach agreement on everything at one session. You may agree to nothing on the first session, but really use the time to hear from each other about what each thinks is fair. People can come for 1 joint session or 3 joint sessions or more – as many as you need to be satisfied with your agreements.
   
   
7. At the end of the sessions you receive a printed copy of your agreements. You can keep them as non-legally binding agreements that you are both willing to stick to, or take them to a lawyer and have them drawn up into legally binding Court Orders.
   

FAQs?