Last night I attended a dinner in Barrie Ont, honouring the ten years that the dynamic and wise Justice Lydia Olah has presided in Simcoe County’s Family Court.
Simcoe County has something that Toronto does not; a specialized Family Court branch of the Superior Court of Justice. Not only are there judges whose sole function is to deal with family law cases, but there is easy access to other critical services, right in the court house.
In Barrie (as in all the specialized Family Courts like Hamilton, Peel, Peterborough and Newmarket) there are mediators right on site. These highly skilled and experienced mediators are available, at little or no cost, for up to two hours of on site mediation and, at a regulated cost, for further mediation off site.
Some of the best family mediators I know work out of the Barrie Mediation Centre. There is a roster of lawyer and non-lawyer mediators, some of whom do this on a full time basis, with experience mediating many hundreds of cases.
These courts have other valuable features like Family Law Information Centres, duty counsel, access to related agencies and judges who encourage the parties to try working with the on site mediators. The high degree of interraction among these connected parts was evident at Justice Olah’s dinner. The speakers included representatives from the bar, the social service agencies, the judiciary and the Mediation Centre, all acknowledging the critical importance of the other. How wonderful to hear the judges and lawyers talking about the importance of “the mediators”!
The value of mediation is well-appreciated by family lawyers and judges everywhere. But I learned last night that when mediation forms an integral part of the family law court, it takes on a much higher profile in the minds of all the players. I felt mildly jealous of my Barrie colleagues for being part of such a holistic, team-based, mediation-focused court and was honoured to be an interloper for the night.
