On Friday, I was a panel member at a conference organised by the Leicester Family Justice Board. The plenary speaker was Sir James Munby, the President of the Family Division – the highest ranking family judge in England and Wales. I had planned to blog about what the panel did, but the president’s speech made me change my mind.
Sir James Munby was a bit of a revelation, I have to say. I’d heard that he was a bruiser; that he was good at talking but not so good at listening. Well it just goes to show that you need to hear someone yourself before judging them. I can see how others, particularly lawyers, might see him as a threat to their livelihoods. It’s easy to write someone off as not listening when they are saying thing you don’t want to hear. Sir James has an unenviable task. He is president at a time when the family justice industry is under huge pressures to change. Legal aid has all but been removed except for mediation. The courts are stuffed to the gills with self-representing litigants. More and more people are avoiding traditional legal practices when they divorce. Non-traditional family legal service providers such The Co-op and Eddie Stobbard have joined the fray. And mediators, financial planners and family consultants are all looking for a slice of the action too. And, (rightly or) wrongly, the government has decided that family justice is not a worthwhile repository for expenditure.
At the conference, Sir James was clear that there needs to be a cultural change in the way family justice is handled. Adversary is not the answer. It helps no-one: well, at least not most families going through transitions. And far from being a yes man for the government, he was unstinting in his criticism of the lack of joined-up government. He castigated it for not listening to those who were telling the Ministry of Justice that it needed to promote the availability of legal aid for mediation when they cut it for nearly everything else in April. The government’s short-sighted planning has resulted in mediation referrals falling off the cliff. Many mediation services are close to closure. Brilliant planning by a government that wants mediation services to become more prominent. Sir james also commented on those lawyers whose commercial sensibilities meant that they were no longer referring to mediation. They are not doing their own or their profession’s reputations any good at all.
When it came to my time on the panel, I was introduced by the chair, Andrzej Bojarski, as the bad boy of ADR (alternative dispute resolution). It was tongue-in-cheek, and I took it as a compliment. Nonetheless it was interesting, on reflection, that much of what I have been saying for the last 7 years or so is now what the most senior family judge in the country is saying. I am part of the advance party of cultural change that Sir James said must take place. So who’s the bad boy now? I’ll get the jackets if you buy the motorcycles, Mr President.
I am Stephen G Anderson. I am a professional mediator.