Category Archives: Family Mediation

We recently surveyed our family mediation and parenting coordination clients. Too often we are focused on the day-to-day pressures and challenges of each file. We don’t take enough time to ask “how did I do?” or to say “thank you!” The results were both rewarding and informative. Here is a summary of what our clients had to say about our …
MORE

I recently was interviewed by Dr. Roisin O’Shea, the Chair of the Irish Professional Mediators’ Organisation. (IPMO) The interview was one of several commemorating International Mediation Awareness Week. It is fascinating to learn the different ways jurisdictions tackle the access to justice and court backlog challenges of our times. And to see how the way in which family mediation has …
MORE

“What helps to resolve family cases? In examining which cases ultimately resolved, what seems most important …was how willing (the parties) were to accept the family dispute resolution paradigm and how able they were to uphold it— given their perspectives and circumstances.”[1]   The summary above, from a study published in the most recent issue of the Family Court Review, …
MORE

A recent decision of Justice A. Himel of the Newmarket Superior Court of Justice is instructive for family mediators, parties seeking mediation services and their lawyers. Butler v Butler addresses the question of mediation confidentiality, and whether an unsigned Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) can be enforced as an agreement. After a long day of closed (eg/confidential) mediation, the mediator dictated …
MORE

Screening is the first step in all family mediation, collaborative law and arbitration cases. The purpose of screening is to ensure that the parties and the process are a good match. There are two options for doing it well. Either the mediator (or mediator-arbitrator) meets separately with each party, or an independent third party meets them both and provides a …
MORE

Originally published in The Lawyer’s Daily, June 30, 2021. If Gary Joseph’s opinion is reflective of what Ontario lawyers know about family mediation practice in our province, (June 22, 2021, “Mediation: The unregulated profession“) some serious correction is called for. Family mediation has been a highly functional self-regulating profession since 1984 when Family Mediation Canada (FMC) was created by the …
MORE

As family mediators, we work “in the shadow of the law”. Our job is to help parties reach agreements that are better for them than their alternatives… meaning mediators must know what a court would do with a given situation. We also must put the interests of children first, and decline to mediate parenting outcomes that we believe will not …
MORE

Listening to the CBC’s recent program on family law (Ontario Morning, March 12), it became clear to me that separating parents do not always understand their dispute resolution options. Recent changes to the federal and provincial laws require all separating couples to consider trying out-of-court settlement, and many are doing just that. But it can be wildly confusing trying to …
MORE