What is Resolution?

There is a stereotype that family lawyers are only interested in conflict, which both increases their fees, and aims to achieve the outcome that their client seeks, whatever the cost.

But whilst some such family lawyers may still exist, most believe that there is a better way to approach divorce and other family dispute resolution.

And many of those lawyers belong to Resolution, a community of family justice professionals who work with families and individuals to resolve issues in a constructive way.

All of our family lawyers are members of Resolution

So what exactly is Resolution – how did it come about, and what does it do?

A little history

For lawyers involved in non-family civil litigation their job is simply to do everything they reasonably can to achieve the best possible outcome for their client, largely irrespective of the effect of their actions upon the other party, or anyone else. This can often mean taking a very robust, confrontational, and sometimes even aggressive, stance, which is obviously more likely to result in heavily contested court proceedings.

And until relatively recent times that was the approach that most family lawyers took to their work. Indeed many, and perhaps even most, lawyers who did family work were civil litigators who did not specialise in family law, and therefore used the same techniques for all of their litigation work.

But around the late 1970s and early 1980s some family lawyers began to recognise that, whilst a robust approach may be appropriate in some family cases, for example where there is domestic abuse or the other party is refusing to cooperate, in many family cases there was a better way.

Obviously, an aggressive confrontational approach to family litigation is highly likely to enflame feelings between the parties, which may already be running high. Increasing the animosity in this way may not only be damaging for the welfare of the parties, it may more importantly be damaging for the welfare of any children involved. It will also, of course, make it much more difficult for the issues between the parties to be resolved by agreement, thus increasing the likelihood of contested court proceedings, with all of the stress, time and cost that they entail.

Thus in the early 1980s some enlightened family lawyers felt that it would be better to take a more constructive and less adversarial approach to family disputes.

The initiative took shape in September 1982 when a London based family lawyer, John Cornwell, gathered together a group of 30 family law solicitors who established the Solicitors Family Law Association (‘SFLA’). A Code of Practice (see below) was then drawn up, setting out the approach that all members of the association should take to their work.

Soon after this regional groups of the SFLA were formed in various parts of England and Wales.

In 2005 the name of the organisation was changed to Resolution, a name which it was felt reflected its ethos. It also reflected the fact that membership of the organisation had widened. No longer was it restricted to solicitors – a wider range of family justice professionals were joining the organisation, including barristers, family mediators and financial advisers.

Today Resolution has a membership of more than 6,500 family justice professionals.

Code of Practice

Central to everything that Resolution does is its Code of Practice, to which all members must sign up

The Code aims to promote a constructive approach to family issues, and to consider the needs of the whole family.

To this end, the Code requires that members:

• Reduce or manage any conflict and confrontation; for example, by not using inflammatory language.
• Support and encourage families to put the best interests of any children first.
• Act with honesty, integrity and objectivity.
• Help clients understand and manage the potential long-term financial and emotional consequences of decisions.
• Listen to and treat everyone with respect and without judgment.
• Use their experience and knowledge to guide clients through the options available to them.
• Continually develop their knowledge and skills (see below).

Alongside the Code, Resolution has created a number of Guides to Good Practice, covering such matters as how members should communicate with others, what should and shouldn’t be contained in their correspondence, dealing with cases involving domestic abuse, and dealing with litigants in person. Members are required to use the Guides in their day-to-day work.

Training and accreditation

A large part of what Resolution does is provide training and accreditation for members.

The training includes conferences, seminars, webinars, online courses and written books and publications, including guidance notes and a bi-monthly member magazine.

The training covers every aspect of family law, and the practice of family law.  Examples of recent training event topics include advocacy, domestic abuse, non-court dispute resolution, and family finance.

More specifically, Resolution provides foundation training for those wishing to become a family mediator.

Resolution also offers training for the new Resolution Together service – see below.

In addition to training, Resolution runs a Specialist Accreditation Scheme, which recognises members who demonstrate skilled expertise in specific areas of family law or family finances, and follow the Code of Practice. Resolution describe their specialist accreditation as: “a mark of excellence in practice, recognised by the public, fellow professionals, the judiciary and the Legal Aid Agency.”

Resolution has accreditation schemes for lawyers and for financial advisors. Lawyer members applying for Specialist Accreditation must demonstrate a thorough knowledge of law, procedure and practice. Their skills, proficiency and experience in specialist areas of family law are also assessed. Specialist areas include such subjects as children law, complex financial remedy cases, domestic abuse, and international cases.

Resolution currently has more than 1,200 accredited specialists, who are recognised for having superior expertise in their given specialism of family law.

Campaigns

Another large part of what Resolution does is campaign for important changes to the law in relation to family justice.

One of Resolution’s longest-running campaigns was for the introduction of a no-fault divorce system. Resolution campaigned for this for many years, lobbying parliament, working with ministers and generally explaining the benefits of no-fault divorce to the public. Happily, the campaign was ultimately successful, when the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act was passed in 2020, bringing in the new no-fault system in April 2022.

Another long-running campaign seeks basic financial rights for cohabitees on relationship breakdown. As Resolution explains: “Cohabiting couples may make up the fastest growing family type, but the law doesn’t recognise these couples in the same way as those who are married or in a civil partnership.” Many people in cohabiting relationships do not realise that they do not have the same rights as married couples, often erroneously believing in the myth of the “common law marriage”. As a result, many former cohabitees are surprised to find that they are unable to make any financial claims against their former partners, and suffer severe economic hardship as a result. Resolution’s campaign seeks to put this right, by giving cohabiting couples basic rights on relationship breakdown. The campaign also seeks to raise awareness so that cohabiting couples can take measures to protect themselves, for example by entering into cohabitation agreements.

Another campaign follows Resolution’s ground-breaking recent report on domestic abuse in financial remedy cases. The report found that 80% of family justice professionals believe that domestic abuse, and specifically economic abuse, is not sufficiently taken into account in financial remedy proceedings. Particular concerns include abusers failing to provide full disclosure of their means and failing to comply with final court orders, so as to frustrate the financial claims being made against them. Resolution is calling for a cultural shift from all family justice professionals to better meet the needs of victim-survivors of domestic abuse seeking the resolution of finances on divorce. It has also made a raft of recommendations to policy, legislation and processes in order to identify and improve how domestic abuse is addressed in financial proceedings relating to families and their children.

Resolution also runs an annual Awareness Week, held in the last week of November each year. During the week Resolution will promote the benefits of its constructive approach, and will often campaign on a particular policy issue.

In addition to its campaigns Resolution will often use its expertise to provide responses to proposed changes to the law and procedure relating to family justice. If, for example, the government launches a consultation upon a proposed change in the area of family law, Resolution will consider the proposal and publish its response to the consultation.

Resolution Together

Finally, Resolution has recently developed a revolutionary new way of working with couples jointly through separation or divorce.

Called ‘Resolution Together’, the service enables couples who want to manage their separation together to seek joint legal advice, rather than separate advice, therefore approaching their divorce in as constructive a way as possible, making jointly agreed arrangements for finances and children based on their shared interests.

This keeps costs down, and aims to steer couples away from the adversarial approach, that so often ends up with contested court proceedings.

Walker Family Law offer the Resolution Together service. For more details, see this page.