Partisans and Mediators

The great majority of divorcing couples seek help in negotiating a settlement. This book represents the results of five years research studies undertaken over a period of eight years, concerned with that help, and about the partisans and mediators who provide it and uses extracts from conversations with parties to divorce proceedings in order to present a picture of law in action. The first study, the "Special procedure" project was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust. The other four were funded by the Nuffield Foundation. The book covers the legal practitioners, whether solicitors or barristers and their responsibilities which lie exclusively with one party to the conflict. The second group - the new mediators - offer themselves to both sides to the dispute. Their claim to specialist expertise lies in the area of negotiating skill. Many are committed to making divorce proceedings less acrimonious. The author concludes that professional awareness of the limitation of "due process", coupled with the pressure to reduce costs, has brought us to a point where the rationing motif dominates our system of family law.
He feels that the prospect of a genuinely non-coercive alternative to legal process is being undermined through this convergence of legal and non-legal forms.