Welcome to Cambridge Family Matters

At Cambridge Family Matters, we don't believe that making informed decisions about your children or financial matters should represent a stark choice between the high hourly charges of legal representation and going it alone through the legal process. We believe there is another way.

£110 MIAM Initial Information & Assessment Meeting

Early legal information saves money.

We offer a £110 initial consultation to explore carefully the issues that you would like to address and resolve. This session can provide you with neutral family law information as applies to your circumstances and to help you establish your alternatives. There are many routes to reaching settlement, some not all that well known. Even though many people first think of court battles when contemplating divorce, actually fewer than 5% of separating couples reach their settlement in a final hearing at court. 

We listen carefully to your concerns and goals and help you to match these with an understanding of the different processes – mediation, mediation/arbitration, legal representation and negotiation, collaborative legal representation, arbitration, direct access barrister support at court or parenting co-ordination. We discuss your circumstances and the pros and cons of each option in order to help you to establish which legal process would be the most appropriate to your circumstances and to your purse. We consider whether domestic abuse has been a feature of your former relationship and how best to support you, going forward if there has been abuse within your relationship, or since the end of the relationship.

The best solutions usually take into account the whole picture when a family is separating. Assuming two separate, adversarial positions is often the most costly alternative, both financially and emotionally, and especially so if this process culminates in court hearings. We seek to ensure you are aware of all of the more constructive routes to settlement at this meeting, before you decide how best to proceed.

For more information, please contact Belinda on 07598 841295.

Family Consultant (Divorce Coach)

A trained divorce coach can support you throughout your separation and divorce, to manage the many emotions that can cloud the view towards the least emotionally and financially costly financial settlement or parenting agreement. When we first separate, we often think of lawyers and court but it can be very costly to rely on lawyers for all of the other support that is required upon separation.

As divorce coaches, we will help you to process the different stages of emotions so that you can maximise your use of lawyers or barristers. By supporting you to gather the relevant information that your lawyer or barrister will require from you, you can be more efficient in your use of the different professionals who can help you most. We will help you to work out when to speak to a lawyer and when a financial adviser, actuary, therapist or other professional might be of benefit to your circumstances.

We then discuss the different routes that are available to you to reach your settlement, and the differing costs that are attached to each. We encourage you to consider the least financially and emotionally draining options suitable for your circumstances. We can work in conjunction with other professionals if that makes practical or financial sense to you. 

For more information, please contact Belinda on 07598 841295.

Mediation

Mediation is easier and less stressful than going to court – and it works. Family mediation helps you sort arrangements with your ex for children and finance with as little acrimony and delay as possible. Family mediation helps all sorts of people - married, unmarried, civil partners, parents, grandparents and step-parents. Even children can take part and feed their thoughts into the decisions that will affect them.

Family mediation is where an independent, trained professional helps you and your ex partner to to work out an agreement about the issues you need to resolve, now that you are separating. Mediation can help you resolve your finances. Your mediator will help you to consider the options for where you will both live, and can help you to plan your future finances. Your mediator understands the legal framework as well as the practicalities that you will need to address. Your family mediator will road test your options with you, so that you can agree what will realistically work best for everyone concerned. That can save you time, money and stress.

For parents, mediation provides you with the space and time to think about what is most important for your children and how to achieve that within the practical constraints of work and other commitments. Your mediator helps you to work out the immediate arrangements for your children but also think about what is going to be important for your children as they grow up.  Again, your mediator can help you road test your options to promote the ongoing well-being of your children. Research indicates that where children are involved, it’s easier for them if their parents co-operate and can help maintain important family relationships. Mediation provides the perfect environment for the development of a new 'alliance' between parents after separation.

We are members of Resolution, the College of Mediators and the Family Mediation Council.

For more information about how mediation can help your family, please call Belinda on 07598 841295.

Parenting Coordination

Parenting coordination is most useful for parents who already have a parenting plan or other permanent arrangements for custody, guardianship and access, usually recorded in a court order or in a written agreement. Parenting coordination isn't designed to make final arrangements like these, it's meant to help implement and work with those arrangements once they're in place.

Parenting coordination does not replace mediation or any other effective means of negotiation, consensus-building and cooperative decision-making. Instead, parenting coordination offers parents involved in high-conflict disputes the consistent, ongoing direction of a single, qualified professional using a less adversarial, less expensive dispute resolution process. The aim of parenting co-ordination is for the family to adjust communication styles to eventually no longer rely on the services of the parenting co-ordinator.

Parents who agree to try parenting coordination rather than going back to court will meet with a parenting co-ordinator and sign a Parenting Coordination Agreement that outlines the role, objectives and scope of the coordinator’s services, as well as the rights and obligations of each parent. The parenting co-ordinator will usually be retained for a fixed period of up to two years.

If you would like more information about parenting co-ordination, please call Belinda on 07598 841295.