The new Financial Remedies Court guide, published in March 2026, emphasises FRC judges will be “ever mindful” of opportunities to settle using a method of Non Court Dispute Resolution, such as mediation, arbitration, private FDR appointment, or collaborative practice.

Judges are mandated to “encourage” parties to “explore” the available possibilities, and to consider at every stage in the proceedings whether NCDR may be appropriate.

Proceedings can be stayed, for example to allow a private Financial Dispute Resolution Appointment, or private arbitration, to take place, typically with a short court hearing listed to follow, which can be vacated if a Consent Order is filed.

The new guidance aims to create a more streamlined proactive court, manned exclusively by specialist judges.

Norfolk and Cambridgeshire forms part of a wider Financial Remedies Court zone, centred on Peterborough, and taking in all divorce financial remedies work for the counties of Norfolk, Essex, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire.

The NES-BCH FRC Zone has access to 8 Circuit Judges, 5 Recorders, 29 District Judges and 32 Deputy District Judges. But of these, the Deputy District Judges are typically part time, with busy private practices as barristers or solicitors. Fulltime judges, meanwhile, have other heavy calls on their available court time, and may handle many other types of cases, as well as their Family Court financial remedies work.

Judges now have power to pause proceedings and direct warring couples to spend time attempting to reach a settlement outside court.

When cases proceed to a final hearing, Judges have powers to impose cost penalties, when in their view parties have done too little to settle matters out of court.

Such pressure is nothing new – courts and indeed solicitors have always encouraged people to settle out of court if at all possible.

But new rules introduced recently have formalised aspects of this, requiring couples to file a statement with the court setting out what efforts they have made to engage with alternative dispute resolution.

The pressure is on.

“We are finding there is huge interest from clients in mediation, which is now completely mainstream”, comments Sarah Fairbrother, a qualified mediator, and Head of Family Law at Ward Gethin Archer.

“But be aware you will need a separate lawyer, to turn your mediation agreement into a binding Court Order – this can’t be done by your mediator.

Collaborative law is a process which relies on meetings, rather than solicitor correspondence, and where both lawyers and clients agree that they will not go to court using the same lawyers. The entire process is confidential and is designed to facilitate an amicable and constructive approach to problem solving.

Rachel Hepworth of Ward Gethin Archer, a trained collaborative practitioner, comments: “This can be used in full blown divorce settlement negotiations, but it is proving to be a particularly useful approach for parties negotiating pre-nuptial agreements.”

Arbitration involves appointing an arbitrator, who acts effectively as a private Judge.

The benefits for clients are speed and confidentiality. In addition, although the parties have to pay the arbitrator privately, the added flexibility and avoidance of the prolonged delays often associated with the court system means that the process can be more cost effective overall.

A further innovation is the so called “private FDR (financial dispute resolution appointment)”. This is a private alternative to the conventional second stage in contested court proceedings. Feedback from clients is that in terms of overall experience, this is a significant improvement on the typical court hearing.