A new law will prevent automatic mediation in\u00a0family law\u00a0cases where one party has a Personal Protection Order (PPO) against another.\u00a0 The court can still\u00a0order mediation if requested by a party protected by a PPO. This is a victory for victims of domestic abuse.\u00a0 I am optimistic that the passage of this law reflects our increasing knowledge and sensitivity to the needs of a party who is the victim of domestic violence.<\/p>\n
In divorces where a PPO has been issued, mediation\u00a0could put\u00a0pressure on the\u00a0party protected by the PPO\u00a0to agree to a settlement they may later regret.\u00a0\u00a0During mediation the parties are normally\u00a0in separate rooms with their respective attorneys,\u00a0with the mediator shuttling between the rooms trying to negotiate a settlement.\u00a0 Notwithstanding this\u00a0physical separation, the drafters of the new law seem to recognize that an abused party may still feel fearful and incapable of standing up to the settlement demands of their abusive spouses.<\/p>\n
Bypassing mediation in family law cases involving domestic violence, however, may have some unintended negative consequences in practice.\u00a0 Almost all divorce cases are settled without the need for trial.\u00a0 Many of these settlements are achieved\u00a0during mediation.\u00a0 If a\u00a0judge\u2019s docket is burdened by a large increase in divorce cases going to trial because they issued a PPO and therefore no mediation\u00a0was conducted, I worry this\u00a0could have a chilling effect on the issuance of PPO\u2019s in divorce cases.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It may also pose a financial burden on parties who will now have to pay their attorneys to take the case through the trial, when it might have otherwise settled.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding this, I believe the new law gives victims of domestic abuse more power and control in their divorce cases.\u00a0 It moves us in the right direction of helping the holder of the PPO end their marriage, hopefully without feeling additionally victimized in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new law will prevent automatic mediation in\u00a0family law\u00a0cases where one party has a Personal Protection Order (PPO) against another.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buyers-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1411,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/1411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}