You and your spouse, or an agency if you are a parent with a child protection issue, may wish to hire a family law mediator if you live in Victoria to be a neutral, third party to facilitate the exchange of information, discuss options and reach agreements. The mediator creates a safe environment for the parties (you and your spouse/partner) to realistically examine options that concern co-parenting, sharing of family assets and debt and child or spousal support, if appropriate. You will be assisted in identifying the issues, exploring options with the goal of agreeing on solutions that you can rely on for many years to come in the form of an enforceable, written agreement. The mediator provides legal information but cannot provide legal advice to either spouse/parent, so it is helpful if each spouse has their own lawyer, but it is not mandatory. Most family law cases resolve at mediation with binding agreements that covers all aspects of your family dispute including child protection matters, child and spousal support, parenting arrangements and family property division, all the while avoiding the expense and stress of litigation.
At West Coast Family Law, we offer mediation services as mediators who are also senior family lawyers. We are able to guide the settlement process based on a thorough understanding of the law toward a consensus-based agreement that will last over time. We provide the most up to date legal information based on the ever-changing case law, particularly, in the area of family property division.
In a stream-lined process, our mediators strive for a low stress and efficient resolution but as these kinds of negotiations involve very highly loaded topics, conflict is inevitably triggered at some point between the parties. We are highly skilled in working with the parties in communication models that ease the conflict and that the parties can then bring into their everyday life, with positive effect. We encourage co-operation, especially where there are children. As a child focused process, we work with ex-spouses who will always be parents, to support new ways of co-operating that will benefit the children every day from attending parent teacher conferences, sporting activities, graduations and weddings. At West Coast Family Law, our primary focus is providing the tools to our clients that will encourage them to develop new modes of communicating within a legal framework that will adapt to the changing needs of a family.
For further information, please visit our designated mediation site West Coast Family Mediation.