State aid should be available for divorcing couples to use collaborative law, family lawyers group Resolution says in the first study of take-up of the non-court process in the UK.

The report, to be published today, says that poorer couples are being denied the opportunity to choose the collaborative process because of the lack of legal aid.

Collaborative law helps couples resolve disputes over divorce or separation through face-to-face negotiations between the parties and their lawyers. It was introduced from the US in 2003, and more than 1,250 lawyers in England and Wales are eligible to offer the service.

David Emmerson, chairman of Resolution’s legal aid committee, said the study shows the process works ‘but clients who qualify for public funding are currently denied the opportunity’.

Of the 300 collaborative lawyers who responded to the survey, 87 (29%) were eligible to do legal aid work in private family law cases. Of those, 58 (67%) said they had seen clients qualifying for legal aid whose cases would have been suitable for the collaborative process had public funding been available.

One-fifth of lawyers had dealt with cases where the total ­family assets were worth less than £100,000.

The research showed an 85% settlement rate in the 2,800 collaborative cases opened during 2006 and 2007, with at least two-thirds settling sooner than they would have with a more traditional approach.

Resolution is in talks with the Legal Services Commission to persuade it to extend legal aid to collaborative law, Emmerson said. ‘Where there are limited assets it is all the more important to try to keep costs to a minimum. We see no ­reason why the existing legal aid structure cannot be adapted to include collaborative law with very little effort at all,’ he added.

An LSC spokesman welcomed the report and said: 'We will be studying its findings very closely to see whether the cases achieved good outcomes for clients and are cost effective. All family work will be paid under fixed fees from 2010 and any collaborative law work would need to come under that fee regime.'