Family Mediation vs Court Proceedings: Costs, Speed and Outcomes

Two very different routes

Family mediation is a voluntary, confidential process. An independent, accredited mediator helps you and your ex-partner work through the issues and reach your own agreement about children, property or money. The mediator does not take sides and does not impose a decision; their job is to help you find solutions that work for both of you.
Court proceedings work the other way around. You apply for an order, a judge weighs up the evidence, and the judge imposes a decision that is legally binding on both of you. The outcome is taken out of your hands.

Control and outcomes

The difference in outcomes is more than just who decides. In mediation, you and your ex-partner shape the result yourselves. One point that is often misunderstood is that a mediated agreement is not automatically legally binding. To make a financial agreement enforceable, you would normally turn it into a consent order and ask the court to approve it, which is a straightforward, low-cost step compared with a contested application.
A court order, by contrast, is binding and enforceable from the moment it is made, with the child’s welfare treated as the court’s paramount concern in children cases. The trade-off is that the process is adversarial and the decision is no longer yours to make. Agreements that people have helped to build themselves tend to be better understood and more readily stuck to, which matters a great deal where two people will go on co-parenting for years.

Where to go from here

The right route depends on your particular circumstances: what is actually in dispute, how well you and your ex-partner can still communicate, and whether there are any safety concerns. For many families, mediation is the quicker, cheaper and less bruising option; for others, court is the proper place for the decision to be made.

“If you are weighing up your options speak to us as can give proper guidance in respect of both routes. Mediation is brilliant when it works but it is not appropriate in every case.”

 

Jessica Thrower

Member and Head of Family