Welcome to Frequently Asked Family Law Questions. Today we’re going to take a look at how to organise a mediation. Mediation is a mechanism where the parties to a dispute voluntarily ask an independent third-party to facilitate a discussion aimed at exploring the issues in conflict and attempting to negotiate an agreement that all parties consent to be bound by.
A recent article on the ABC asks the question who is worse off after a divorce, men or women? The article considers a recent report by The Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Following on from Friday’s post about compulsory mediation for family law matters involving children, some might be wondering if there is a similar requirement to attend mediation for financial matters (also known as family law property settlement matters). There is no corresponding compulsion in the Family Law Act 1975 to attend family dispute resolution for financial matters, however, as a matter of practice, mediations in one form or another do tend to occur as a matter of course. The parties may opt for mediation as the first step in the dispute resolution process. Given the many benefits of mediation, this is a sensible approach to dispute resolution. Mediation tends to be cheaper, faster and permit a more satisfying resolution where the parties decide the terms of the agreement, rather than have terms imposed upon them. If proceedings have been commenced, when the matter comes before a judge the Court will ...
We’ll take a short break from our series on Family Law Fundamentals to start a new series on Frequently Asked Questions. This is one of the most common questions we get asked – and the answer is generally, yes, mediation is the first step in the process if your dispute involves children. As we discussed in our recent article on the best interests of the child, filing an application with the Court is essentially asking a judge to decide for you what is in the best interests of your child or children. There are many reasons why such an application to the court is sometimes necessary, but a far better (and cheaper) way to resolve the dispute is to engage in family dispute resolution, also known as family law mediation. There are many benefits to mediation: The process is flexible and can be tailored to the individual needs of the ...
If you’ve read our article on Equal Shared Parental Responsibility, you’ll know that it is presumed to be in the best interests of the child that both parents share responsibility for making decisions about major long-term issues concerning the child. Determining what is in the best interests of the child is relevant to both rebutting this presumption of equal shared parental responsibility, and to making decisions about where the child lives, who the child spends time with, and other matters that the Court is called upon to consider when making Parenting Orders (including Consent Orders) under Part VII, Division 5 of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (“the Act”). s.60CC of the Act sets out a long list of matters that the court must consider in order to determine what is in the child’s best interests. This list is broken down into Primary Considerations and Additional Considerations. Primary considerations are given ...
Welcome to our series of articles on Family Law Fundamentals. We’re going to start by looking at the stated objectives of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (“the Act”), and the provisions of the legislation which put those objectives into operation in a practical sense. The place to start is s.60CA of the Act, which requires that the court must regard the best interests of the child as the paramount consideration. But just was is in a child’s best interests? How does the court decide? What factors are considered? OBJECTIVES OF THE ACT The objects and principles of the Act are outlined in s.60B. To summarise, s.60B(1) states that object of this Part of the Act (Part VII – Children) is to ensure that the child’s best interests are met by: Ensuring that children have the benefit of both parents having a meaningful involvement in their lives; Protecting children from physical ...
The truth is always the best evidence. Sitting in the back of the court today and I was reminded of one of my first cases and the lesson is as timely as ever. All those years ago I was instructing a barrister (who is now a Federal Circuit Court judge) and our witness was on the stand. The witness was asked a seemingly innocuous question – ‘how tall was he?’ The witness replied, “five foot eight and three quarters”. I was just a junior solicitor, but I knew in that instant that we were stuffed. Well, if not that exact instant, certainly in the one where the witness was asked if she stood by that statement and she confirmed that she was indeed certain that the man was, ‘definitely five foot eight and three quarters’. The witness had no way of knowing the exact height of the person in question ...
A great deal of time, skill and effort went in to designing the Breen Smith Family Law logo – and just as you’d expect from a family run and family focused law firm – it was a family affair. Shannon had the idea but not the skill to bring it to fruition. She turned to her good friend (and sister-in-law), talented artist and children’s book author and illustrator, Heidi Cooper Smith, who turned Shannon’s vision into reality. The idea was of a tree whose two sides grew side by side from the outset. At some point, these two halves stopped growing in the same direction and began to grow apart. As the sides diverge, they turn their backs on each other until at one point, one side turns back and tries to reach out, but is shunned. Eventually, both sides realise that despite the fact they have grown apart and ...