Prince George lawyer Darlene Kavka added mediation to her list of services after seeing the amount of damage done when marriage breakups landed in court.
All too often, she said, people focus on the win rather than on what's best in the long run and the bad feelings can come back to haunt.
"One thing that's clear is that family law was built into a model of adversarial law by accident more than planning and because of that, it wasn't well suited to it," Kavka said. "It doesn't take long to practice in it to recognize the structures around litigation typically don't work well with people who are going to have to work together indefinitely, particularly in raising children."
Kavka has been a practicing lawyer since 2000 and earned her qualifications as a mediator about eight years ago. She is a member of the Mediate B.C. Society, which released a survey this week that shows mediation costs a fraction of what litigation costs and yields very high rates of satisfaction.
Total fees for civil, family and workplace mediation were found to be less than $2,000 per case. And because the cost of mediation is shared between all of the parties, the individual cost was significantly less than litigation.
In comparison, a 2014 survey of the legal community by Canadian Lawyer magazine estimated average legal fees for a two-day civil trial at $21,252 per party or a two-day family trial at $14,500 per party.
The results also indicated that more than 90 per cent of mediations resolved all issues or helped the parties move toward resolution. People using mediation reported a 93 per cent satisfaction rate with the process and an 85 per cent satisfaction rate with their outcome.
Kavka said it's a good idea to consider mediation at the outset.
"Before they get entrenched in positions, they should look at what their common interests are and what can be resolved without turning it into an adversarial approach," Kavka said.
Kavka has come across people who agreed to mediation only as a ploy to drain their adversaries' resources while they get ready to go to court.
"One of the hardest things I have to face is when mediation has been agreed to as a stall tactic and without any genuine interest in resolution," Kavka said. "It takes a little intuitive practice to get a handle on that and I can't say I've mastered that but I recognize it more than I did eight years ago."
She also urged parties to go into go into the process with an open mind and warned they can come away disappointed.
"My suggestion is make sure they're doing it for the right reasons, that they have an objective in mind that is not a straight rights-based based objective but what is going to serve their family the best, what is going to serve the needs of everyone at the table," Kavka said.
Lawyer Roger Haines, who is on Mediate B.C.'s roster of civil mediators, said the process is a good alternative but only for those who are reasonable rather than intransigent.
"Not every mediation resolves things, it's not an arbitration, it doesn't end with the mediator saying the deal is X and see you later," Haines said. "It ends with an agreement or no agreement."
