What’s really holding us back from recommending mediation?

At our recent event, we invited fellow family solicitors, who are not practising mediators, to speak candidly about what makes them hesitate before recommending mediation as a process for their clients.

Using an anonymous Slido poll, we asked: “What are your barriers to mediation?” The responses offered a clear snapshot of the pressures and responsibilities family lawyers face every day. What stood out was not scepticism about mediation in itself, but concerns about fairness, safety, and the practical realities affecting clients.

The main concerns

A major theme was anxiety around unequal dynamics between separating partners. Comments such as ‘imbalance of power’, ‘vulnerabilities’, and ‘one party not financially savvy’ appeared repeatedly. These concerns reflect a shared instinct: the desire to ensure that clients are not overwhelmed or pressured. Family lawyers often meet people at moments of profound instability, insecurity and emotional turmoil, and mediation only works safely when proper screening and structures are in place.

Cost and delay were also key concerns. For clients already dealing with the emotional and financial pressures of separation, adding another process can feel risky. Many solicitors worried that mediation may add to the overall costs of the process without real progress, and disclosure difficulties were a repeated theme. If disclosure is incomplete or expectations entrenched, mediation can become an unproductive and costly detour. Solicitors often deal with clients who provide information slowly or incompletely, or misunderstand their obligations. When disclosure is unreliable, mediation rests on unstable foundations and may not support a fair agreement.

Several responses noted simply human obstacles: unreasonable objectives, lack of confidence, emotional unreadiness, or inflexibility. Mediation requires honesty and at least some willingness to compromise. Not every client is ready for that, and lawyers must balance the aspiration for amicable resolution with the reality of individual behaviour.

The role of the solicitor in mediation

Some solicitors also expressed concern that mediation may avoid the most difficult issues, or that the solicitors themselves lose too much oversight once mediation begins. These concerns are about responsibility, not pride. Solicitors must ensure outcomes are robust, safe, and legally sound. When mediation feels detached from the legal framework, hesitation is understandable. This raised an important question: does mediation have to be a process from which the solicitor steps back?

A contribution from a civil law colleague offered a striking comparison. In commercial and civil disputes, solicitors stay fully involved in mediation. They advise, structure negotiations, and ensure clients understand the implications of potential outcomes. Civil mediation is not a lawyer‑free environment, but rather lawyer‑supported throughout. This led to a key reflection: perhaps many family lawyers’ concerns arise not from mediation itself, but from the tradition that solicitors withdraw from the room.

When lawyers prepare a client and then wait outside, concerns about imbalance, vulnerability, or incomplete disclosure naturally feel more acute. A solicitor outside the room cannot observe dynamics, support a client in difficulty, or help keep discussions on track. Often they only learn about issues after mediation, when it may in practice be too late to address them (albeit the discussions might not be binding and remain without prejudice until openly recorded), but parties’ positions can start to entrench and be harder to tread back.

Solicitor-supported mediation

Hybrid mediation, a form of mediation where the mediator can support negotiations between the parties by holding confidences between the parties, rather than being obliged to share everything that either party says to them, often takes place with solicitors present in the mediation sessions.

There is no reason why the same cannot also apply in a collaborative, solicitor‑supported version of traditional mediation. This allows solicitors to be present without overshadowing the mediator. Rather than increasing tension, involvement often strengthens the structure. Clients feel supported, mediators gain clarity, and solicitors maintain confidence that negotiations remain grounded in legal reality. Seen this way, many of the concerns raised in our poll were not barriers to mediation itself, but barriers to a model that excludes solicitors.

A more integrated, solicitor‑engaged version of mediation (such as the hybrid model) may unlock its full potential. With the right involvement, lawyers can ensure clients are prepared, disclosure is complete, issues are identified early, and discussions stay balanced. And, importantly, this reflects what civil practitioners have long understood: solicitor presence does not undermine mediation; it underpins and supports it.

Mediation can offer enormous value for families. To deliver that consistently, the profession needs to feel confident in the process, the safeguards, and the role solicitors can play. Listening to practitioners’ concerns provides the roadmap. Bringing solicitors more fully into the mediation space, through hybrid models or structured collaboration, may be one of the most important steps towards making mediation work for every family who needs it.