Right – metaphor sufficiently stretched. Sorry. I refer to the title of Nearly Legal’s recent post: LSC: goalposts aren’t moved, just very bendy, which articulates the latest contortions by the LSC. Thanks Nearly Legal, although it has made my head hurt.
Incidentally, solicitors embroiled in the tender debacle may wish to join in the debate on the ilegal fora here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged family justice system, legal aid | Leave a Comment »
Ok, we’re sort of getting to the point of going live on the redesigned site, along with a switcherooney of hosting. It should all be smooth and seamless and magical, and technically I shouldn’t even need to pre-warn you, but I suspect that there will be lumps and glitches before we get there. Be patient.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
A couple of pieces in the Guardian which are worth a read: here and here. No soundbites, just common sense and a thoughtful approach to the problems. The first, by a very sensible and knowledgeable family magistrate, almost makes me waver in my long held view that family cases are unsuitable for disposal in the magistrates…Almost.
Posted in courts, family justice review, resources | Tagged courts, children, delay, family justice system, care proceedings, resources, family justice review | Leave a Comment »
Everyone’s at it. Now the Law Society has launched a JR of the LSC in respect of their tender process in family matters. See the Gazette. As reported yesterday another JR application yesterday got off to a positive start, with Collins J describing the LSC’s approach as irrational. That matter was adjourned off for 8 days. So that’s 2 JRs, and if Nearly Legal is right (see yesterday’s post) there may be more to come. Who says there’s no legal news in August?
Posted in courts, legal news, public funding, resources | Tagged public funding, courts, legal aid, family justice system, legal news, resources, judicial review | Leave a Comment »
On Monday Panorama showed a report on the journey through the family courts of a family accused of causing serious non-accidental injuries to their baby son: ‘Parents’ Child Abuse Nightmare’. After lengthy police investigation and care proceedings no prosecution was pursued and a finding of fact hearing exonerated the parents, the Judge holding that there was no cogent evidence that causation of the injuries was non-accidental.
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It was a shocking story, perhaps more so for those who do not work in the system and have not been caught up in it in respect of their own families. On another level, for care practitioners like myself it was however in many respects unremarkable – although the case broke new ground in respect of issues concerning publication of judgments and the identity of experts the care proceedings themselves raised familiar issues and followed a well worn path. What was unusual in terms of the care proceedings was the total failure of the Local Authority to make out threshold.
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There were several predictable references to the secrecy of the system, though the system was not so secret as to prevent the programme from being made. The fact that permission had been given for the proceedings to be reported did not appear to attenuate the hyperbole about the cloak and dagger approach of the courts (In fairness though, the lengths to which the parties and the BBC had to go to get permission were not insignificant as can be seen from the number of citations which follow at the end of this post). Continue Reading »
Posted in cases, legal news, transparency | Tagged children, non accidental injury, cases, transparency, care proceedings, television, legal news | 2 Comments »
Want some free CPD? Its approaching the CPD year end for solicitors (Oct) and not all that far off for barristers (Dec)… Well, lucky readers of Pink Tape may now sample the wares of CPDcast for free using the code below. CPDcast tell me that:
‘CPDcast is an online CPD provider to the legal profession, helping solicitors, barristers and legal executives get their points and keep up to date. Their library contains over 400 titles in 25 practice areas, divided into pithy 30 minute legal podcasts.
To get your free podcast just select the one you’d like to listen to for free. Then when you get to the payment screen put in the following voucher code “pinktape2010″ which will discount the price to 0.
This voucher code can be used to listen to any one podcast on our site and is valid until the end of this calendar year.’
Feedback on the CPD they provide could be helpfully posted in comments on this post.
Posted in representation | Tagged representation, funny, odd or interesting, cpd, legal knowledge, training | Leave a Comment »
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Recent Court of Appeal Decisions (Civil Division)