Prince Edward Island Settlement Negotiation Project
| Description | Pilot providing unrepresented family law litigants with the opportunity to work through a time-limited collaborative law process to resolve the issues in dispute. |
| Status | Ongoing pilot |
| Jurisdiction | Prince Edward Island |
| Court | Supreme Court of PEI |
| Body responsible | Collaborative Law PEI |
| Subjects |
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| Timeline | |
| April 2009 | Settlement Negotiation Project launched |
| Publications | |
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| Development | |
| Settlement Negotiation Project was developed by the Members of Collaborative Law PEI and is funded by the Law Foundation of PEI. | |
| Purpose | |
| To provide unrepresented family law litigants with the opportunity to work through a time-limited collaborative law process to resolve the issues in dispute. The hope of the founders is that this project will demonstrate the effectiveness of parties receiving legal advice and effective negotiating assistance concurrently and not, as is more often the case, only one of these elements and not the other. | |
| Description of reforms | |
As part of the Settlement Negotiation Project, a collaborative lawyer will guide, advise and assist each party to family litigation in the negotiation which will follow the format of a collaborative law process, using "interest-based" dispute resolution skills and interventions. During this process the participants will:
There is currently no means test for participation, although there is hope that this will turn into a project for low income families who can benefit from the combination of an interest-based dispute resolution process AND actual legal advice given in a collaborative context. This pilot project is offered to unrepresented litigants in the family division of the Supreme Court. Individuals are given information about the opportunity to participate in the project at the time of filing documents with the court. They are instructed to contact the project's coordinator to express an interest and the coordinator explains the project in more details and does an initial screening for appropriateness. If both parties to litigation agree to participate, and the coordinator does not find issues which screen the parties out of the project, then the parties are each assigned a collaborative lawyer who will work with them in a time-limited collaborative process. At this early stage of the pilot project, and given the time limits, cases where domestic violence is an issue are not being accepted. Collaborative law can work very effectively in these cases, but more resources are needed to support and protect the family. Referrals have also come in through case management, when a case management judge identifies unrepresented parties and explains the option to them. In addition, the family law centre provides information and resources to people going through separation and divorce and this information includes a brief overview of the pilot project. | |
| Revision History | |
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Submit update
If you have updates, changes, or additional information regarding this reform, please contact our Librarian, Brad Albrecht, at balbrecht@cfcj-fcjc.org
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URL
http://cfcj-fcjc.org/inventory/reform.php?id=120