The Family Mediation Trust partners with Courtney Legal to support separating couples
Separation and divorce come with a steep learning curve. Alongside the emotional upheaval, most people are suddenly expected to understand court processes, legal terminology and their own options, often with very little help. Research from the Law Commission has found that the law itself "lacks accessibility to an extent that it could be argued to be inconsistent with the rule of law", and an estimated 70% of divorcing people never access formal legal advice at all.
It's a gap we see every day in our MIAMs and mediation sessions at The Family Mediation Trust. So we're pleased to announce a new partnership with Courtney Legal, a free, audio-visual family law library, to help fill it.
What is Courtney Legal?
Courtney Legal is the UK's first audio-visual legal education platform dedicated to family law. Rather than long documents full of legal jargon, it explains family law and dispute resolution through short videos, animations, audio explainers and plain-English articles, covering everything from financial matters to non-court dispute resolution and children arrangements.
It isn't a law firm and doesn't offer legal advice. What it does offer is clear, neutral, practical information, presented in a way that's genuinely easy to take in when you're already dealing with a lot.
How the partnership works
From now on, when a case at The Family Mediation Trust moves from a MIAM into mediation, we'll provide clients with a free link to the Courtney Legal platform.
Your mediator will talk to you about this during your MIAM or mediation session, explaining what's on the platform and how it might help you understand the process you're going through. It's entirely your choice whether you use it. There's no obligation, no cost, and no pressure either way. Some clients will find it useful to explore in their own time between sessions; others may prefer to rely on their mediator alone. Both are completely fine.
Why we think this matters
Family mediators are experts in helping people resolve disputes, not in delivering a legal education. Having a trusted, free resource to point clients towards means people can go away and revisit information on their own terms, at their own pace, and come back with better-informed questions.
It also means that, whatever people's route to information, whether video, audio or a mediator's explanation, they're better equipped to understand their options and make decisions that work for their family.
Find out more
If you're going through separation or divorce and want to understand your options before or alongside mediation, ask your mediator about Courtney Legal at your next session, or get in touch with us to find out more about how our MIAM and mediation services work.