Acting as your solicitor during family mediation
At Anthony Collins Solicitors, our fully accredited family mediators are also experienced family solicitors. In their capacity as solicitors, they can provide support and legal guidance through the family mediation process.
The dual qualifications of our team mean that we have the knowledge and specialist contacts to help you reach successful conclusions in family mediation. If you would like us to act as your solicitor, rather than your family mediator, we are also perfectly placed to help you to identify the right family mediator for you too.
How we can help you…
…as solicitors, before family mediation
We can also help you to prepare for family mediation sessions to ensure that you are fully informed about what to expect and what to look out for in sessions. If you’d rather we acted as your family mediator, you can find out how here.
…as solicitors, during family mediation
As solicitors, we have many years’ experience and expertise in considering disclosure documents and identifying gaps, discrepancies and omissions. These can be highlighted either in mediation or directly by us. This ensures you have a full picture of family finances. We can assist you in considering the merits of proposals, that have been made in family mediation sessions, and reality test them to see if they are workable. We can also help you consider and formulate other proposals in family mediation sessions, and help you look at what options might be available.
At the conclusion of the family mediation process, we can assist you in evaluating the conclusions reached and the reasons as set out in the Memorandum of Understanding. Having done so, we can use our many years’ experience to help you to draw up consent documents that can be placed before the courts and turned into binding legal agreements.
…as solicitors, after family mediation
As solicitors at the conclusion of the family mediation process, we can assist you where disclosure is required or expert information is needed. We can also look at the merits of proposals made in mediation and help to ‘reality test’ options that are being considered, thereby establishing their viability. If conclusions are reached in family mediation, we can use our many years’ of experience to help you to draw up binding agreements that can be placed.
Solicitors can assist parties in preparing ‘parenting plans‘, which set out arrangements in respect to their children. The basis of these can be proposals made in family mediation. Unlike Memorandums of Understanding, ‘parenting plans‘ are open documents and so can be disclosed to a court in the event an issue arises. We can also provide legal advice where children are concerned and support you during this process.
For further information
To find out more about how we can be your family mediator, please contact a member of our family mediation team: Chris Lloyd-Smith, Maria Ramon or Kelly Brown.
We’ve produced a glossary of family mediation terms to help you get started.
Other organisations that can support you with marriage counselling, citizens advice, domestic violence and parenting support can be found here.
