The NEW Family Law Act Encourages Mediation

Family mediation is an excellent way to by-pass a system that for years, has had judges make rulings for families based on their own sense of what is right and fair, and based on precedence that is, in and of itself, subjective and case specific.

The new Family Law Act which will come into effect on March 18, 2013 emphasizes the value and great potential in family law mediation. 
Under the new Act, section 8 (2) sets out that the professional must:

 • discuss with the party the advisability of using various types of family dispute resolution (which is now a defined term in the  Act) to resolve the matter, and

 • inform the party of the facilities and other resources, known to the family dispute resolution professional, that may  be available to assist in resolving the matter.

Under the current Family Relations Act, the court cannot impose mandatory mediation on separating couples.  However, the new Statute not only encourages dispute resolution by defining it in the Act, but gives the court the right to impose mandatory mediation in certain circumstances.

It is time for families to maintain control of their destiny with the assistance of trained, neutral, third party mediators who can assist in creative, legally sound solutions for separating families, in less time and for a fraction of the cost.