a famous 15 mins

ok 15 mins jogging isn’t much but I’ve been painfully edging towards it for a couple of weeks. Afew days ago 15 mins solid jogging with no stops and today the same but I covered a lot more ground in that time. In my terms that’s a real achievement, but goodness only knows how I’m [...]

Consultations

2 important consultations open at present, both affecting the family bar: . Reforming The Legal Aid Family Barrister Scheme, which can be found here. Open until 10 Sept and essentially proposing three different ways of slashing the fees which family barristers will be paid, none of which looks an attractive prospect : cut base fees [...]

The Training Begins

I use the word training loosely – a ten minute jog on day one almost caused an aneurism, and coupled with the need to breastfeed the baby before I had even caught breath. I’m now managing to find time to jog a couple of times a week with the dog while the other half watches the sprog, [...]

Bristol Half Marathon Attempt

Anyone who knows me  thinks I am out of my mind – I am allergic to exercise and I’ve just had a baby. The explanation lies in the fact that in truth promising the world at large that I WILL DO THIS is the only way to force myself to exercise and lose the baby weight. [...]

legal hub article database

A new online resource for all those of you who have time to kill or want to get some tips on practice development / marketing etc etc… Legal Hub (the chaps who run the database of practising barristers and expert witnesses etc) have a new articles section. Based on my not-very-in-depth-analysis of the titles of [...]

two loos

two reasons for pointing you in the direction of this blog and specifically this post: firstly its a really interesting but tragic post about a 10 year old child bride taking herself off to court to obtain a divorce from the husband who repeatedly raped her (and an interesting blog generally from the looks of [...]

quote of the day

Just reading about the recent ruling that the use of anonymous witnesses is incompatible with a fair trial, and specifically to the right of the accused to see and challenge his accusers. Can someone who does criminal law tell me why it took the House of Lords to set that straight? Well, DUR! (as they say)   . [...]

A child or not a child?

An interesting conundrum is posed by a comparison of these two recent authorities, both cases where Lambeth wished to refuse or discontinue s20 accommodation to a ‘child’ who they considered was in fact an adult. It seems that in some cases a Local Authority is the arbiter of whether or not a child is in [...]

ORDERED: The parties shall live happily ever after or until further order (whichever is the sooner)

One contention that unites the bitterest of opponents involved in the family justice system is that there is a lot wrong with it. There is even a modicum of consensus as regards what is wrong with it – typically, it is under resourced, slow and opaque in its workings. On these basic facts everyone from [...]

Reforming the Grad Fee Scheme – Consultation Open

The Consultation Paper on Reforming the Family Barrister Fees Scheme has been published today. . Commenting on the consultation, Lucy Theis QC, Chair of the Family Law Bar Association, said:  . ‘The protection of children is a concern to all of us. A robust legal aid system is vital to prevent damage to children – [...]