The practitioner
Duarte Bazaliza
Principal Solicitor · Notary Public · Registered Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner
Twenty-two years in practice, and a mediator who will tell you when mediation is the wrong instrument for your matter.
Arrange a mediation
- 22+
- Years in practice
- FDRP
- Registered practitioner — issues s60I certificates
- Notary
- Public Notary in Australia
- Two
- Law degrees — Civil and Common Law
Background
Who you are actually dealing with.
The practice
Duarte is the Principal Solicitor of Bazaliza Lawyers, a Sydney firm practising from Potts Point since 2014 across family law, property, commercial matters and estates. Mediation sits inside that practice rather than beside it — the same disputes, approached as something to resolve rather than something to run.
Registered, not just experienced
He is registered as a family dispute resolution practitioner under the Family Law Regulations. That registration is what allows a section 60I certificate to be issued, and not every mediator holds it however long they have practised. In practical terms it means a parenting matter can be taken from first call to certificate without being handed to anyone else.
A lawyer who mediates
There is a real difference between a mediator who knows the law and one who does not. In the pre-meeting you get a frank view of the range a court would likely produce for a matter like yours — which is the single most useful thing a party can have before they start negotiating, and the thing that stops someone anchoring to a number no judge would award. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your own solicitor. It is orientation.
Notary Public
As a Public Notary he can notarise and authenticate documents where a settlement needs it — powers of attorney, declarations, certified copies for use overseas — without sending you to a third party at the point the agreement is finally ready to implement.
Dual qualification
Duarte holds two law degrees, in Civil Law and Common Law, and was the first lawyer from the Portuguese Bar admitted to practise in Australia. For most clients this is simply background. For a family with assets, relatives or obligations overseas it is the difference between a settlement that works on paper and one that can actually be implemented — and where either party is more comfortable in Portuguese, the whole process can be conducted in it.
How he mediates
Separate pre-meetings with each party, always. Issues identified before options are generated, and options generated before anyone negotiates — because reversing that order is what makes mediations fail. Heads of agreement signed on the day wherever the matter allows, because an agreement everyone intends to document next week has a weekend in the middle of it.
When he says no
Mediation is not always the right instrument, and a practitioner who accepts every matter that walks in is not assessing suitability. Where there is family violence, a risk to a child, genuine urgency or a party who cannot effectively participate, you will be told at intake — not after a fee has been taken.
Arrange a first call.
Twenty minutes, no charge, and no obligation to book anything afterwards.