Keeping You Out of Court

Virtually all cases involving Family Issues are best kept out of Court. The only exception would be where there have been incidents of domestic abuse. Chafes will always encourage you to reach agreement yourselves and this can be achieved in a number of ways.

We would actively encourage you to discuss ways forward with your partner or former partner. If you reach agreement yourselves, this can be put into documentary form and made a Court Order by Consent without either of you having to attend Court.

Why Is It Best to Keep Out of Court?

The Court process is stressful for both parties to any dispute. The process is essentially an adversarial one where Lawyers must put the best case they can for their client and at the same time find holes and areas of weakness in the other parties case.

Litigation through Courts is expensive and in the main unnecessary.

Mediation

We refer our clients to attend meetings with Mediators who are usually legally trained or have a background in Children’s Social Services. If agreement is reached in Mediation, then the Mediators draw up a Memorandum of Understanding and invite both parties to seek legal advice concerning the Agreement reached. More often than not these Agreements are fine tuned and then put into further legal documents including Consent Orders of the Court.

Collaborative Law

We at Chafes have Collaboratively trained Lawyers.

Collaborative Law is a relatively recent development whereby both parties to a family dispute and their respective collaboratively trained lawyers, sign up to an Agreement. All concerned commit themselves to resolving issues without going through the Court process. There is an incentive on all sides of the agreement to go forward under a collaborative law process to reach an agreement.

The collaborative law process can take a number of months and there are meetings between the legal advisors and then usually a number of meetings where the advisors and their client’s attend.

Chafes Solicitors are members of the North and East Cheshire Collaborative POD for collaborative lawyers..

Lawyer Led Negotiation

In every case we at Chafes strive to reach an agreement without recourse to litigation. More often than not agreements are reached through correspondence and communication between your solicitors. Negotiation can continue even if proceedings are issued. If all else fails then litigation and Court Hearings must be regarded as a measure of last resort.

We at Chafes have a Specialist Team of Family Lawyers who are able to guide you through all family issues without unnecessary attendances at Court.