New Partnership with Courtney Legal

Family mediation works best when both people come to the table with a clear understanding of what they are trying to achieve and what the law says about it. The reality is that many of the people we work with cannot access that understanding. Legal advice is expensive. Many clients arrive at mediation without having spoken to a solicitor, unsure of their rights, uncertain about what a court would consider reasonable, and sometimes unclear about what they are actually agreeing to.

That gap matters. When people don't understand the legal framework around their situation, they can enter agreements that don't reflect their interests, or they can hold firm on positions they might reconsider with better information. Either way, the outcome is worse than it needs to be.

We have partnered with Courtney Legal to address this directly. From now on, every client who moves forward into mediation with the Family Mediation Trust will have access to Courtney's legal information portal: a comprehensive, accessible legal landscape of separation in England and Wales. It covers financial settlements, child arrangements, what agreements need to look like to be recognised by a court, and much more, written to be understood by people going through it rather than by lawyers.

What this is and what it isn't

We want to be clear about the distinction. The portal provides legal information, not legal advice. It will not replace a solicitor, and we will always encourage clients to take independent legal advice where they can. What it will do is ensure that clients who cannot access a solicitor are not left navigating the process without any framework at all. It levels the floor just a little.

Access to justice has always been at the heart of what the Trust does. We exist to make mediation available to people who need it, not just those who can easily afford everything that surrounds it. This partnership is a direct extension of that commitment.

For clients who need it most

The people most likely to benefit are those who come to us without legal representation, which in our experience is a significant proportion of the families we work with. For them, Courtney's portal means arriving at mediation sessions better informed, better able to ask the right questions, and better placed to make decisions they can stand behind.

Better informed clients reach better agreements. That is good for them, good for their children, and good for the mediation process as a whole.