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Toronto, Ontario
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Phone: 416-222-4555

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Hamilton, Ontario
L8N 2A1
Phone: 1-905-662-6000

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ADR – Alternative Dispute Resolution

For Cost Effective Legal Solutions and Faster Results

What is ADR?

ADR, which stands for Alternative Dispute Resolution, refers to a group of methods used to try to settle legal disputes. In family law, divorce mediation and arbitration are two commonly used ADR avenues for settling disputes about family property division, spousal and child support and child custody.

Collaborative Law is a more recently developed ADR method that is gaining popularity with many Toronto family lawyers and couples.

Benefits of ADR

Alternative Dispute Resolution is chosen by many divorcing couples who want to minimize the conflicts, costs and time involved in going through divorce court. Couples using ADR to settle their family law issues have a greater input into the outcomes of their settlements than if they have a judge make the decisions.

The goal of your ADR family lawyer from the outset is 'out of court' settlement. Whether they use mediation, arbitration or collaborative law to achieve it, their focus is on negotiation and cooperation with the opposing side, rather than preparing to argue a court case and filing court documents.

Divorce Mediation

Divorce Mediation, one type of ADR, may be right for you if you and your spouse want to negotiate between yourselves, but also want or need a lawyer on hand for legal advice and support in your negotiations.

It is always a good idea to have your own independent legal advice from an experienced family law lawyer when trying to settle on family property division, child and spousal support, child custody and other family law and divorce matters.

In Divorce Mediation, a Mediator, a specially trained impartial third party, will guide the process of negotiation between you and your spouse toward an agreement. This is in contrast to Arbitration, another ADR process in which a third-party Arbitrator will hear the case from your lawyers and make binding decisions about the issues in dispute.

Arbitration Services

Getting arbitration services might be seen as going the middle route between mediation and court litigation in divorce.

A family lawyer providing divorce arbitration services will try to negotiate with your spouse's lawyer toward settlement of all of the issues without resorting to the courts, but the lawyers may decide to refer unresolved issues to an Arbitrator for a decision.

Collaborative Law

Collaborative Law is becoming an increasingly popular ADR route for settling family law matters in Ontario. Collaborative Family Law (CFL) is different from mediation and arbitration in a few ways.

The most important aspect of collaborative law as an alternative to court, is that the lawyers and spouses all agree at the outset that they will not resort to the courts for settlement. If a settlement does become impossible to reach, you cannot use the same lawyer from your CLF negotiations to help you with your court case. This puts the onus on the lawyers and you to negotiate and cooperate as much as possible to avoid court.

You can find out more about how collaborative law works here at DivorceSupport.ca