Rachael Blakey
Associate Professor
Director of the Academic Skills Programme (ASP)
Deputy Director of EDI (Student Facing)
Family Law; Mediation; Access to Justice; Dispute Resolution; Professionalism; Gender; Legal Aid; Family Mediation
School of Law
B1.15, Social Sciences Building
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom
024 765 24954
My main research interests are in family law, socio-legal methods, access to justice and professionalism/legal ethics. My PhD considered the purpose of, and perceptions around, family mediation in the modern family justice landscape. From developing a theoretical framework, to scrutinising the structural problems around the mediator profession, I re-examined family mediation as a process that promotes a new vision of family justice in the contemporary climate. This is a timely and cutting-edge area of research following recent reforms which removed legal aid for most private family law disputes.
My key works include:
- Rethinking Family Mediation (Bristol University Press 2025). Second Prize for the SLS Peter Birks Prize for Early Career Researchers.
- One-lawyer-two-clients. The first empirical study on how family lawyers advise and see two clients at once.
- Quantitative analysis. A study into legal aid statistics around family mediation support.
I am correctly an Independent Director of the Family Mediation Council (FMC), the main regulatory body for family mediators in England and Wales.
I have been the School's Deputy Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) since January 2023. As of September 2025, I have been the School's Director of the Academic Skills Programme.