I have got a lot of time for Christina Blacklaws and agree with much of what she has to say about the lack of joined-up thinking in government family law policy.

However, I was disappointed with the article’s headline, ‘No panacea for family problems’.

Who are the mysterious people who claim that mediation is a panacea? I don’t know any of them, that’s for sure, yet the statement is presented frequently as opinion, more often by alternative dispute resolution sceptics than by experienced mediators like Ms Blacklaws.

What I will say, though, is that ADR is a panacea for 99% of all private law family cases, in my experience. The day I hear lawyers and judges claim that litigation is not a panacea, is the day when mediation, collaborative law and other processes have well and truly been accepted.

Stephen G Anderson, solicitor, mediator and collaborative practitioner, Birketts, Ipswich