What happens next? The next steps after you’ve been to mediation

The next steps after you’ve been to mediation

There are numerous television and movies with courtroom dramas , whilst it is quite rare to see anyone engaging in the much less gripping mediation process. Fortunately, there is quite a lot of information available online about what happens at mediation and participants are generally well prepared in MIAMs (click here for more information about MIAMs) for the joint sessions. Briefly, an MIAM is….a meeting where you are given information about what mediation is and assessed for the suitability in your situation.

However, I often spend quite a lot of the last joint session, explaining what the next steps are. If clients have lawyers then it is all about signposting them back to their lawyers to obtain legal advice on their ‘without prejudice’ proposal so that it can be made into a binding settlement. ‘Without prejudice’ means…that the conversations cannot be referred to in legal proceedings. They are helped by the fact that the mediator prepares some formal documents, known as a Memorandum of Understanding (which records the background to the agreement, and what has been agreed or not), and open Financial Statement, which records the financial position of the parties to the mediation, as disclosed to the mediator and to each other.

These documents explain to the legal representative, in a way that they will understand, what the settlement is and what factors were taken into account. If there is any hesitancy about recommending it, then the couple can come back to mediation. The lawyers will then draft a ‘Consent Order’ and ‘Pension Sharing Order ‘where appropriate. A Consent Order is the document that is sent to the Court recording the final agreement reached between you. It often asks the Court to make a Pension Sharing Order to enable the pensions to be legally divided between you.

In certain circumstances, the mediator can draft the first version of the Consent Order but the terms have to be very simple and largely uncontroversial. Legal advice is still required. Sometimes, participants do not have lawyers. In this situation they still need legal advice but they can be referred to a new legal offering called “One Couple one Lawyer “and lawyers who have done this specialist training can be found on the Resolution website.

Using the’ without prejudice’ proposal reached in mediation to obtain your binding settlement and court sealed Consent and Pension Order is the mediator’s aim, and you will generally find that they will do all that they can to facilitate this outcome for you.