Reconstruction of family mediation in a post-justice world

Following the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO), family mediation became the policy makers’ dispute resolution process of choice in England and Wales and the only one for which legal aid is available, save where domestic violence can be evidenced in a prescribed way. Drawing on evidence from an ESRC-funded socio-legal project Mapping Paths to Family Justice (Barlow, Hunter, Smithson and Ewing, 2017) and its follow-up Impact Accelerator study Creating Paths to Family Justice (Barlow, Ewing, Hunter and Smithson, 2017), this chapter first explores the extent to which this mainstreaming of mediation may have distorted its very essence as a voluntary process, freely entered into by parties wanting to resolve their disputes out of court, where it is now expected to cater to a much wider range of cases and parties in pursuit of a policy agenda to keep disputes out of court. Second it considers the operation of mediation outside the family justice framework, where online information has replaced legal advice for many and outcomes reflect settlement imperatives rather than family law principles. Finally, in light of these developments, it examines what the future might hold. Could mediation morph into Online Dispute Resolution? Or might the Australian model of lawyer-assisted mediation provide a means to reintroduce considerations of justice into the process?