Blog Posts: August 2009

A rather introductory piece on divorce mediation within the United States from the Vernon Hills Review. In traditional divorce litigation, the only one making money is the lawyer. Attorney fees can total up to $50,000. In this instance, mediation costs between US$1,500 and $3,000. The mediation firm, Robert Brass & Associates' research shows that mediating couples are committed to working together for the benefit of their children, more likely to be satisfied with the process and resu....

For those of you looking for some interesting reading with a law theme, please check out, Dele Ogun's book, The Law The Lawyers and The Lawless. I know Dele from Toastmasters(public speaking) and his book represents an intriguing autobiographical account from West Africa to the English Bar and provides an insight into  cultural integration to the UK. Dele is a genuine and skilful lawyer and good fun to public speak with as well.       ....

An interesting article in the Guardian about the impact of the recession on pregnant women in the workplace. "Rosalind Bragg, director of charity Maternity Action, says: "We have seen an increase in the number of women being chosen for redundancy because they are pregnant, which is unlawful. We are very concerned that some unscrupulous employers are using the recession as an excuse to unfairly target pregnant women and women on maternity leave." She adds that women are reporting ....

There is an excellent article written by Alex Locke for the ELA Briefing on the issue of employment judicial mediation. We now learn via Alex the following. There are very few employment judges trained as mediators. In one of the London regions only two judges have been trained. There appears to be inadequte facitiies such as more than 1 room available. There is a lack of guidance given to parties which prohibits the judges from giving a steer to the parties. Oh dear. First of all....

With some rather positive headlines about the economy such as risining stockmarket, house prices and services activity there are some that think the worst is behind us and we can look forward to a new brighter era. Sorry to be depressing but that it is not my view. There is still too much debt in the economy and for individulas, too much emphasis on high house prices, the Bank of England  has just had to do more Quantatitive Easing and  the redundancies have not worked....