Marilyn Stowe Blog

When one party refuses to settle, why not try this?

Yesterday, writing about Financial Dispute Resolution hearings, I described how frustrating it can be when an FDR hearing fails and a case proceeds to a Final Hearing. Wasted time and increased costs, stress, worry…  Surely there must be a more civilised way to reach a settlement, in which all parties can have confidence?

I have recently come across just such a solution. It isn’t suitable for everyone and it isn’t cheap, but for certain cases, it might just do the trick!

What about retaining the services of a High Court judge, now retired?

Sir Hugh Bennett QC and Sir Peter Singer QC are High Court judges who retired from the bench in 2010. Both have now returned to private practice and are lending their skills and expertise to settlements. Sir Hugh Bennett can be contacted via his independent Chambers and Sir Peter Singer can be contacted at 1 Hare Court Chambers.

On his webpage, Sir Hugh is described as a “qualified mediator”. Sir Peter, meanwhile, is listed as a “Family Dispute Resolution Facilitator”. These are somewhat modest descriptions, given each lawyer’s distinguished career and wealth of experience presiding in high profile and controversial cases. For example, Sir Hugh was the judge in McCartney v Mills McCartney. Sir Peter was the judge in Miller v Miller.

Sir Peter is also one of the creators of At A Glance and @eGlance: a popular toolkit for practitioners. I use it all the time when advising clients: showing a client a Duxbury calculation created especially for them, on screen or on paper, makes it far easier to understand.

I recall instructing Sir Peter Singer in one case, years ago. My client had insisted on instructing me and had travelled some way to do so. However I couldn’t do anything to please her. Her expectations of the likely financial settlement were wildly unrealistic, and I knew that I could never hope to satisfy them.

Then I had an idea! I suggested we went to see Counsel, to take advice from the top man in the country (which he was at that time – with a hardline reputation to boot) and get his opinion.

The train journey to London was 2.5 hours. The conference lasted 10 minutes…

“Do you mean to say that generally speaking -” began my client, aghast that Peter Singer QC had agreed with me.

“Madam, there is no such thing as ‘generally speaking’”, said the august Queen’s Counsel. “We are speaking of you!”

The client gulped and barely uttered another word. Somehow I remained perfectly expressionless.

Job done, I went back to Yorkshire and settled the case.

So I am delighted to learn that these two retired judges are now available to accept instructions to conduct private mediation and FDR meetings. I consider it more likely than not that parties who jointly instructed one of them would achieve a settlement. They would be free of the courtroom’s time constraints and in many cases, the cost could be lower than that of an FDR or a contested hearing.

I am assuming, of course, that the parties in question would wish to settle. But even if they didn’t, I suspect that they would be unable to resist giving it a go. If my own experience is anything to go by, there must be few intractable cases that these two sharp, experienced minds cannot resolve…