A Message of Optimism For 2010

I have sought the guidance of the Geek and there is hope for the family bar after all…Apparently I need first to ditch hubby number one and find a more…uh…economically viable on. I KNEW I was missing a big part of the economic equation that made this job worth it. The solution is so simple. Thanks GL [...]

Blawg Review of the Year

Nominations for Blawg Review of the Year are open and will be announced in the New Year. You can find out how to nominate your favourite Blawg Review of 2009 at Blawg Review 244, along with a list of all the 2009 Blawg Reviews (instructions at the bottom).

Facebook Divorce

Thanks to @nickbilton for the RT of this story in The Telegraph about the number of online divorces citing facebook as a contributory factor. In fact the headline is ‘Facebook Fuelling Divorce Research Claims’ with a strapline of ‘Facebook is being cited in almost one in five of online divorce petitions, lawyers have claimed’. . [...]

Surviving a Stepfamily Christmas

I must be moving up in the world: I haven’t dealt with a single last minute spat over who gets the kids on Christmas Day this year. I had steeled myself for the annual onset of the Christmas Contact frenzy: desperate attempts to shoehorn in urgent hearings, and to persuade a judge to give the [...]

Reporting the Reporter

I have a current bugbear, but don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to add to the mass of negativity surrounding the dread word ‘social worker’. This post really only concerns the cases where the quality of s7 reports prepared by social workers in private proceedings falls far short of the expected standard. Most reports [...]

A Festive Message

I’ve been moderating comments on the Pink Tape for some time (see here also) to ensure that abusive or inappropriate posts are not published by those with little or no respect for myself or readers of Pink Tape. It works pretty well, although its a pain for me to have to individually check each message and it [...]

CAFCASS Given Funding Boost

The Times reports on p 23 this morning that Cafcass has been given an extra £1.6m to help with the backlog in care cases.

Unintended Consequences

I had an interesting chat the other day with a child’s solicitor about one of the unintended consequences of the public law outline, with its emphasis on pre-proceedings assessment and meetings. Children’s solicitors are really a niche within a niche. However, now that parents are able to instruct solicitors prior to the issue of proceedings in order [...]