lIon

However, the Lord Chancellor's Department has also had to contend with the impact of research carried out by Gwynn Davies et al into Publicly Funded Family Mediation (available in full or summary form from www.legalservices.gov.uk/misl/news/index.htm). While this research was commissioned by the Legal Services Commission, its findings are again a sad indictment on the aims of the divorce regime under the Family Law Act 1996. The aim of the study was to evaluate the cost effectiveness of mediation within family justice, not purely, therefore, where couples are divorcing. The study also covered a period prior to the implementation of s 29 of the Family Law Act 1996 and so was able to evaluate the change to mediation that this will have caused. In a lengthy summary, it is clear that mediation was reasonably well received by those who undertook the process, but that their solicitors received higher praise. The extent of mediated agreements was not high, with around one-third of participants reaching agreement when financial matters were the subject of the dispute, but, where children type issues were mediated, a higher agreement rate was achieved. The fact that clients would retain solicitors as well as mediate was highlighted in the context of the assumption that the former would lose 'market share' once mediation became established. The conclusion being that 'there is little prospect of mediation replacing lawyers-or certainly not of its 'replacing them effectively' (Davis, G, 'Mediation and legal services-the client speaks' [2000] Fam Law 110). This is surely a body blow to the Family Law Act 1996.