Consultation Paper on Alternative Dispute Resolution - Law Reform ...

for cases not proceeding to mediation at this point were that the parties settled
matters before the mediation took place or one party was reluctant to
proceed. 138
5.121 Data supplied by the Ministry of Justice based on an analysis of
direct costs to the end of April 2006 showed that the average cost of a
mediation was $777.16 and in 7% of cases the cost of mediation exceeded
$800. In 56% of cases a lawyer for the child was appointed for the mediation (in
addition many cases referred to mediation had a lawyer for the child appointed
already and the average cost of lawyer for child appointed for the mediation was
$943.48. 139 The length of mediations ranged from 1.5 hours to 7.5 hours.
According to mediator case reports, 33% mediations were completed within
three hours and 50% took between three and four hours. 140
5.122 Of the 257 completed mediations, agreement was reached on all
matters being mediated in 59%, and agreement was reached on some matters
in a further 30%. The most common reason for achieving only partial agreement
was that the level of trust between the parties was so low that one or both
required evidence that the other party was prepared to make agreements work,
before they were prepared to make concessions on all disputed issues. 141
Consent orders were sought in 68% of cases in which all or some agreement
was reached. In only 13 mediations (5%) was no agreement reached. In most
cases, mediators believed that this was because one party was unwilling to
compromise or to put the children‘s needs ahead of their own. 142
5.123 Given the mediation pilots success, a Family Courts Matters Bill 2008
was introduced as the legislative vehicle allowing for the Courts to direct
attendance at mediation and to implement the pilots on a permanent basis. 143
The 2008 Bill does not propose to change the existing judicial mediation
process under the Family Proceedings Act 1980. This would see the options of
either judicial or non-judicial mediation working side by side.
138
Barwick and Gray Family Mediation - Evaluation of the Pilot: Report for the
Ministry of Justice (Ministry of Justice, 2007) at 12. Available at
http://www.justice.govt.nz/pubs/reports/2007/family-mediation-evaluation-of-
pilot/ex-summary.html.
139 Ibid. at 14.
140 Ibid. at 15.
141 Ibid. at 17.
142 Ibid.
143 2008 No 143-2.
199