STATISTICS ON FAMILY LAWYERS-- Around a quarter of solicitors regularly undertake family law cases, spending 10% of fee earning time on them.-- Of those conducting family law cases, 29% are specialists.

Assistant solicitors are much more likely to work in the large firms.

Only 3% of family law practitioners in sole practices are specialists compared to 55% in firms with 11 or more partners.-- Women family law practitioners (67%) are almost six times more likely than men (12%) to be specialists.-- In April 1995, only 5% of firms had solicitors working for them who had undertaken training in family mediation, while 4% of firms had solicitors trained in civil mediation.THE FAMILY LAW ACT 1996 SHOULD HOLD NO FEARS FOR LAWYERS COMMITTED TO A CONCILIATORY APPROACH, SAYS NIGEL SHEPHERDThe pace of change for family lawyers over the past decade has been furious, with legislative and procedural developments culminating in the Family Law Act 1996.The pace seems unlikely to slow down and the successful family lawyer must continue to respond positively and flexibly to the challenges ahead.

The radical Family Law Act 1996 is unlikely to be fully in force until the millennium, but pilot schemes in relation to information and mediation start this summer and part IV, which contains the new domestic violence provisions, will come into force later this year.DOMESTIC VIOLENCEThe provisions in this area are far more complicated than maybe they should have been.

In addition, the Act gives all courts the same powers and there is also every possibility that the Legal Aid Board (LAB) will require most cases to be heard before magistrates.Furthermore, the necessary emphasis on protecting parties from violence means that a number of the other requirements of the Act will not apply where violence has taken place or is alleged.

Ironically, therefore, we may see an increase in domestic violence applications in circumstances where parties might currently be persuaded to withhold them.

Family lawyers will need to be able to strike the right balance if the spirit of the Act is to be applied.-- NO FAULT DIVORCEIt will take the public a long time to get used to the new system.

Being unable to blame the other party, or being told that there is little that can be done to stop the divorce, may add to a spouse's sense of frustration and anger.

It is important that family lawyers recognise the need to make time to attend courses, such as those run by the Solicitors Family Law Association's (SFLA) education committee, that help to increase an understanding of the emotional, as well as purely legal, consequences of relationship breakdown.-- INFORMATIONTraditionally, family lawyers have been the first port of call for those seeking information about the divorce process, but this has nearly always been in the context of the lawyer going on to provide advice and representation.

Now those with a financial interest in the case will be precluded from providing information at the new compulsory meetings; so the family lawyer will not be able to act for the client to whom he or she had given that information.

This does not mean that lawyers will no longer give out information, but they will need to be fully conversant with the way in which the compulsory meetings work.

Joining with professionals from other disciplines in information consortia seems to be one way for solicitors to continue to use the experience they have built up in this area over many years.

The cross-disciplinary approach is likely to become increasing ly important.-- MEDIATIONMediation is a cornerstone of the new regime.

Practitioners should see it as one option to be encouraged whenever it might be appropriate for the client.

For the first time, legal aid will be available for it.

Although in due course it is expected that the statutory charge will apply to mediated agreements, this will not be the case during the pilot schemes, which will be an added incentive for clients to try it.Whether or not solicitors train as mediators, every family lawyer must understand what mediation can offer, know where to find it and be able to work with both mediators and clients as the process proceeds.

Firms will need to decide whether to offer mediation as part of their practices or to concentrate solely on providing legal advice.

Whichever route is taken, the ability to work closely with other professionals, and to be flexible, will be essential.There is a long way to go before the Act is fully implemented.

Much will depend on the pilot schemes which will dictate who the legislation operates in practice.

Whatever happens, divorce will remain a legal process and lawyers will still be central to it.SOLICITORS ARE PREPARING FOR A GREATER EMPHASIS ON MEDIATION.

BIBI BERKI ASKS WHETHER THEY ARE MARKETING IT PROPERLYThe preparation for and provision of family mediation has moved at lightning speed since the arrival of the Family Law Act last year.

But things were starting from a pretty low base and, as many practitioners in the area will confirm, there is still a long way to go.

Family mediation -- which has been around for at least the past 20 years -- was waiting for an Act of Parliament to buck it up and consolidate it as a practice.

There had been a lot of talk, a lot of conceptualising.

Now -- although it is still unclear exactly when the Act will be enforced -- things have begun to happen.

For the first time the Legal Aid Board will produce a set of standards with which individuals and practices must comply.

A series of pilot schemes around the country will test the provision of the service and the standards criteria.

More and more solicitors are attending mediation training courses.

And next year there will even be a diploma in mediation if Oxford University gives it the go-ahead.There is only one conceivable stumbling block.

The profession may be waking up to the necessity of providing non-contentious legal services for separating couples -- but is the public aware of this service? Practitioners -- both lawyers and mediators from a social work background -- agree that the future of mediation will live or die according to how well it is promoted.

And this is the one area where both lawyers and the government will have to change their mind-set.For lawyers, this change will be a tall order.

They are used to upholding the rights of the individual, generally to the dissatisfaction of the other party.

In mediation, this approach does not work.

The mediator encourages both parties to come to a working solution.The burden of promoting mediation is going to lie squarely on the shoulders of the LAB.

In April, it announced a pilot scheme in which 13 towns and cites around England and Wales would be able to provide legally aided family mediation, the first of which is due to begin shortly.

In addition, five pilots of divorce information meetings begin this month, and the Law Society's family law committee has urged solicitors to participate (see [1997] Gazette, 21 May, 38).The 1996 Act, says the Board, will 'stimulate demand for family mediation to resolve issues relating to children , property and financial matters for separating and divorcing couples'.

Because this initiative comes from the Board, the scheme is of course linked with franchising.

The Board has produced a draft code of practice for firms, which will touch on issues ranging from dealing with violent clients to reconciliation matters.Although the Board is laying down standards for mediation, this does not mean the subject has been dormant in the wider world.

The UK College of Family Mediators has offered a qualification in mediation since 1996.

The college is the product of three bodies: National Family Mediation, Family Mediation Scotland and the Family Mediation Association.

The three combine members from the social services, therapeutic and legal professions together.

The course supplies the trainee with a qualification, accreditation and -- unlike many other professional traineeships -- re-accreditation every few years.Other avenues of training exist.

The Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA) has been running its own eight week mediation courses since last year and has already trained more than 100 solicitors.

The immediate past chairman of the SFLA's mediation committee, Rosemary Carter, thinks that there are limitations to mediation and some areas of the Act have not been thought through.

'People keep losing sight of the fact that there is going to be a minority of cases that can use mediation,' she says.Alastair Logan trains both barristers and solicitors as mediators through his company LawWise and supplies mediation services through his Solutions Mediation Centre.

In addition, Mr Logan chairs the year-old British Association of Lawyer Mediators which has 300 members.

A family lawyer for 29 years, he is perhaps the foremost practitioner of mediation in the UK.

'We should be turning ourselves into problem solvers and not primarily litigators,' says Mr Logan.Mr Logan's own mediation practice, which has been active for three years, has dealt with 70 cases.

The types of cases he handles illustrate how difficult and demanding the job of a mediator is.

In one case, an extremely complex trust document had to be drawn up when a couple wanted to leave valuable heirlooms to their children.

In another, a husband, who was gay, would have lost his job if the details of the separation from his wife were made public.

In both instances litigation would have been inappropriate or even disastrous.But how will the message be made clear to the clients? The Family Law Consortium in central London is a true innovator in the field.

A family practice run by five professionals, it was set up two years ago to offer a different kind of service to separating couples.

It is run by three solicitors and two non-lawyer mediators who provide their service on a co-mediation basis.

This means that in every mediation, both a solicitor and a mediator with a social work background is present.

This, says Ruth Smallacombe -- one of the latter -- provides a balance of skills.

She is the chair of the Family Mediators Association (FMA), and says the association has a strict rule that mediators need a further qualification if they wish to work on their own, without a partner.Mediation is still a young profession which has to establish an infrastructure.

Ms Smallacombe agrees with Mr Logan's assessment that things have moved relatively fast in the past year.

But she still has an impressive wish list for her fledgling profession.

At the top of the list is better promotion.

She would also like to see increased funding in the area and the implementation of the findings of t he Legal Air Board's research during its pilot scheme.

Mr Logan says lawyers underestimate the stresses involved in managing a couple's negotiations -- especially when one of the main tenets of mediation is that the couple should lead the negotiation.

'For the lawyer, it's much harder being a mediator than a litigation solicitor,' he says.

'But you've got to get people in a room together, and you have to look at their body language.

It's a very stressful situation.'PETER GEORGE PREDICTS SOLICITORS WILL BECOME LIKE CASUALTY WORKERS IF MARITAL BREAKDOWN CONTINUES AT ITS PRESENT RATEThe Policy Studies Institute has predicted that by 2010 most couples will cohabit before getting married and most marriages will end in divorce followed by re-marriage.

A report compiled by the charity NCH Action for Children some time ago spoke of the suffering of children from unsatisfactory home backgrounds who were deprived of opportunity and love.These changes in family life will generate an increasing volume of work for lawyers.

The Family Law Act 1996 is expected to encourage greater inter-disciplinary co-operation and an additional curriculum in the education of family practitioners with, perhaps, a requirement for a specialist qualification in family law.

The need for broadening multi-disciplinary insights and back up might also encourage larger family law departments in solicitors' firms including specialists in different areas.

The changes may necessitate further statutory reform, for example a Cohabitees Act.

In addition, they may require adjustments in the way in which judicial discretion is exercised (see Ormerod J's comments in Martin v Martin 1978 FAM 12).

Likely developments may include a growth in independent rights for children and more public sector work relating to children; an increasing number of contracts for cohabitees; the re-visiting of the question of pre-nuptial contracts; a greater willingness to negotiate in divorce settlements, with adversarial litigation being seen as a last resort (and consequently there being a smaller and more specialist Bar); better knowledge of international conventions and foreign laws affecting family matters and more co-operation with overseas practitioners as multi-national relationships and marriages increase.

Practitioners will have to keep up to date with such developments and anticipate their strategic and practical consequences.However, family lawyers need to look beyond mere facts and trends.

If matrimonial breakdown increases, the family solicitors will become like nurses in casualty wards moving from one crisis to another.

Their teams may need warmer hearts and cooler heads.FAMILY LAWYERS CAN PLAY A POSITIVE ROLE IN HELPING THE NON-MARRIED FAMILY SECURE ITS FUTURE, WRITES GILL BUTLERBeing a family lawyer can be difficult at the best of times.

Being a family lawyer advising clients whose families are not recognised by the law is a challenge.

As people change partners in or out of marriage, complex family relationships are developing with many children growing up with two or more sets of parents.Family lawyers must understand the changes that are happening in family life.

People are living together outside the traditional nuclear family structure.My own practice may be a typical as most of my clients are cohabitants and a number are in same-sex relationships.

Many solicitors, however, are still surprised by the number of clients who tell them that a previous solicitor has made them feel uncomfortable and did not understand their situation.

Clients do not wish to feel that they ar e in some way peculiar, neither do they wish to be regarded as a solicitor's interesting or unusual case which will be discussed throughout the office.Cohabitation is a growth area for family lawyers.

This is not just in regard to relationship breakdown.

Most cohabiting couples want to give each other and their children as much legal security as possible and family lawyers are best placed to identify the areas which non-married couples ignore at their peril.Traditionally, family law solicitors may have left advice on property ownership to their conveyancing colleagues and advice on wills to their wills and probate departments.

But now they increasingly have to address parental responsibility agreements, pension provisions, powers of attorney and other issues which married families take for granted.Of course, some couples make a deliberate decision not to get married precisely because they do not wish to be bound by the legal responsibilities which marriage brings.However, in view of the still widespread public ignorance about the legal position of unmarried families, family lawyers can play a positive role in assisting the non-married family to secure its future.Some solicitors may think there is already enough new law to worry about without looking for work.

Life may have been simpler when we were divorce lawyers.

But if now we really are to be family lawyers this means dealing with all families, legally recognised or not.