The government wants to encourage families to resolve their difficulties through negotiation, therefore, legal aid for family mediation is available in certain circumstances.

You may be eligible to access Legal Aid Mediation if you are receiving certain benefits called Passporting Benefits, (such as Universal Credit, Income Based JSA, Income Based ESA or Income Support), are on a low income, or not working and do not have savings or other financial assets.
The only way to be properly assessed for legal aid for mediation is to supply your family mediator with evidence of your income and outgoings. This information is used to do a calculation that is prescribed by the LAA and therefore the mediator has no discretion over the outcome of this calculation.
If you are not eligible for legal aid, mediation is still usually cheaper and quicker than going to court. There are also many other benefits in terms of reducing the antagonism that divorce litigation or going to court may create, and starts to build a new relationship based on co-parenting and co-operation.

For this reason, if you are eligible for legally aided mediation the Legal Aid Agency will pay for:

• Your individual meeting
• Your ex partner’s individual meeting
• The first mediation meeting for both of you
• All of your ongoing mediation
• The cost of writing up the mediation documentation to make it legally binding