After more than a year of research, writing, drafting, edits and more edits, I am so pleased to announce that Lexis Nexis Practical Guidance has just published a complete, comprehensive guidance for family law professionals on the topic of screening for power imbalances and family violence.
Family mediators have long understood the importance of following well-established best practices for identifying, assessing and managing potential risk in their practices.
Since 2007, those providing private adjudication services in family law— mediation-arbitration, arbitration and parenting coordination—have also been required to follow screening best practices.
However, absent a clear understanding of the requirement, its purpose and its elements, inconsistent practices have developed in Ontario.
This has led to confusion all around— for mediators, arbitrators, parenting coordinators, counsel, and the courts.
The newly published Practice Guidance by Lexis Nexis—available only to those who subscribe to the service— will help everyone working in the family dispute resolution field understand the purpose, principles and most effective ways of responding to the critical screening requirement.
Screening is in essence the means by which family dispute resolution (FDR) professionals determine which matters are appropriate for their processes and which are not. It provides reliable protocols, validated by research, for use in all FDR processes, with specific steps and tools to be used.
The new material in the Lexis Nexis practice advisor includes:
- A comprehensive practice note, describing principles, statutory authority, qualifications, legal consequences for non-compliance and risks.
- Detailed precedent Screening Report with annotations.
- Clauses relating to screening for each FDR process agreement
- Checklist for the steps of the screening process
- Glossary of terms and
- Table of jurisprudence.
This solid resource will be updated as case law evolves and new screening tools emerge.