The Unverifiable Truth

Another article from Camilla Cavendish at The Times today about Family Justice. And again more heart rending tales of injustice which are completely unverifiable. She writes of Ann who was accused by her violent ex husband of having Munchausens by proxy (Fabricated or induced illness) – on the basis of her account it seems a [...]

Openness

This saves me the job of summarising the current position on the moves towards openness in the family justice system…

‘churs droive’

- so my 18 yr old client this morning thanked the Judge for approving the consent order we had drawn up…(well, without the ‘droive’ bit – but a palpable brizzle ‘cheers’ nonetheless…and later, this afternoon’s pensioner client thanked the Judge as he left the room. Even more of a surpirse since she had just given [...]

‘The Barristers’ airing soon

The BBC2 / OU documentary ‘The Barristers’ has finally been scheduled for airing in four parts starting on Friday 14th November at 9pm. Set your skyplus digibox type machines to pre-record….

A Friendly Pointer

Further to previous posts here and here about McKenzie friends… QUESTION: I am about to embark on a journey as a McKenzie Friend to my partner, who has been involved in a long legal battle for residency/contact etc. She is now broke and cannot afford to pay for a solicitor. Her ex is likely to object [...]

better off without ‘em?

Before I make this post let me say that what I report here is in my experience unrepresentative of social work standards in general. Most social workers maintain professionalism, objectivity and open-mindedness. . I was mortified to hear a social worker involved in a case I was dealing with recently joke about how the children [...]

McKenzie Friends – Updated PD

The Practice Direction on McKenzie’s has been amended to take account of the recent judgment in N (A Child) [2008] EWHC 2042 (Fam). In short, exceptional circumstances are not a prerequisite for the grant of rights of audience to a McKenzie Friend: although the starting point is that this will not ordinarily be permitted a McKenzie [...]

Three Day Week

Phew. Just spending my Sunday night preparing for my case tomorrow and completing my paperwork for the FLBA survey – I have been complaining all weekend about how exhausted I am when I have only worked a 3 day week (took Mon and Tues off). Now I have had to add up my hours worked [...]

The turf is always greener

Further to my post noting the outbreak of ’turf wars’ between barristers and solicitors…on further investigation the ‘turf wars’ appears to amount to a rather snippy press release from The Law Society in respect of its response to the MoJ consultation on the FGFS, in respect of which the FLBA have so far maintained a dignified silence. [...]