The short answer
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 took most private family law out of scope on 1 April 2013. Before that date, being financially eligible was broadly enough to get a solicitor funded. After it, you also needed to come through a gateway. Mediation was deliberately kept in scope, on the expectation that people would mediate instead of litigating.
Key points
- Royal Assent 1 May 2012. The legal aid provisions commenced 1 April 2013.
- Divorce, financial settlements and child arrangements came out of scope.
- Family mediation stayed in. That was a deliberate policy choice.
- Care proceedings and the domestic abuse and child protection gateways survived.
- The predicted move to mediation did not happen. Mediation assessments fell sharply.
- Litigants in person rose from 14 per cent of family disputes in 2013 to 47 per cent in 2025.
What was taken out
Most private family law. Divorce itself, financial remedy proceedings, disputes about children between parents, and most of what an ordinary separating couple actually needs help with.
The reasoning offered was that these were private disputes between individuals rather than disputes with the state, that public money should be focused where the stakes were highest, and that people would resolve matters out of court instead.
What stayed in
- Family mediation. Kept in scope in terms, in Schedule 1 to the Act.
- Care and supervision proceedings. Non-means and non-merits tested for parents.
- The domestic abuse gateway, for private family cases where abuse can be evidenced.
- The child protection gateway, where a child is at risk.
- Injunctions under Part 4 of the Family Law Act, forced marriage protection, and child abduction.
Since then a little has come back: the time limit on abuse evidence was removed in January 2018, and special guardianship returned to scope in May 2023.
What actually happened
The policy assumed people would move from courts to mediation. They did not.
Mediation assessments fell sharply in the first year after the change, not least because most people had previously heard about mediation from a solicitor they were no longer seeing. Removing funded solicitors removed the main referral route into mediation.
What rose instead was people representing themselves. Neither party had a lawyer in about 14 per cent of family disputes in 2013 and in 47 per cent across 2025. Around 80 per cent of private family cases now involve at least one litigant in person, which lengthens hearings and puts pressure on judges.
The mediation voucher scheme, introduced in 2021, was in part an attempt to rebuild the route into mediation that 2013 removed.
Jess’s view
“The bit that gets forgotten is that solicitors were the main referral route into mediation. Take the funded solicitor out of the picture and you do not just remove the lawyer, you remove the person who told people mediation existed. Everyone was surprised when mediation numbers fell. They should not have been.”
Jess Knauf, Director of Client Strategy at Family Legal Ltd