Financial Entitlements for Kinship Carers

I have posted on this topic before. The One Show tonight ran a piece about Local Authorities advising kinship carers to seek residence orders in order to avoid their ongoing duty to a child, in particular to avoid an ongoing financial duty by way of carers allowance. I just wanted to briefly post about this [...]

Calls for inquiry into access to family justice

Family Law Newswatch reports: Lawyers acting for vulnerable children and families have today joined forces with the leading children’s charity, the NSPCC, to call for a Parliamentary inquiry into the state of the family justice system. The move comes amid heightened public concern over the need for a stronger legal framework for child protection following [...]

Laming Report Published

Lord Laming’s Report in the wake of the Baby P tragedy was published this week. It can be found here. Of particular relevance to family lawyers Lord Laming recommends an urgent review of the £4,000 fees for the issue of care proceedings and that steps should be taken to reduce the average case length in [...]

Legal Action Group Director Warns of Loss of Skilled Practitioners

Steve Hynes, Director of LAG, talks to CharonQC about the proposed cuts in Legal Aid (amongst other things). Talking about the family bar his view is that the government has “pushed it about as far as they are able to without causing serious damage to the practitioner base”. He talks about his annoyance that Jack Straw [...]

Legal Aid Cuts Consultation Deadline Extended

In my inbox from the LSC: ‘Following requests from a number of Provider Representative Groups, including the Family Law Bar Association, the Family Legal Aid Funding consultation has been extended. The consultation will now close at midnight on Friday 3rd April.’

Key Transferable Skills

I’ve been thinking a lot lately (something I hate to do when it’s not billable, but – sigh - needs must) about what I would do with my life if I was forced to abandon the bar as a result of the legal aid cuts. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not there yet – it cost [...]

Baby P Sacking Legal Actions Commence

Sharon Shoesmith has commenced not one but two legal actions in connection with her dismissal from Haringey over the Baby P case – judicial review and employment tribunal, the Guardian reports.

Family Law Bar Report – the lowdown

Although most of the professional press have failed to grasp the concept of ‘embargo’ I, out of politeness, have waited until today to post about this report, which in essence tells you everything that you could hope to know about the family bar. You can already read about the report in the Gazette and Times [...]

Sting in the tail

Camilla Cavendish writes about the ‘sting in the tail’ of Jack Straw’s proposals to open up the family courts to media scrutiny. . Still no word I think about when the legislative change required to bring this new arrangement into place by 1 April is going to be published or how ‘accredited media’ will be [...]

Family Courts Reach Breaking Point

No time to comment now, but follow link here for breaking reports following FLBA Press Conference yesterday, regarding the publication of the Family Bar report.