PUBLICATION OF INFORMATION IN CHILDREN MATTERS – CHILDREN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES ACT 2010

The Children Schools and Families Act 2010 made its way through ‘wash up’ and received Royal Assent on 8 April 2010. Amongst other things (not dealt with here) it makes substantial and controversial changes to the law concerning the publication of material relating to family proceedings, which are summarised below. There will be repeals and [...]

Sign of The Times

I have been wondering whether all my links in previous posts to articles on the Times website would disappear behind the impenetrable paywall on D day. The answer seems (for the moment) to be no – all links to old articles seem still to be good. Which is nice… But I suspect in the future [...]

Dads-to-be excluded from ultrasound scans

Rob Williams writes in the Guardian about the practice at Basildon hospital of excluding fathers to be from ultrasound scans. He suspect[s] that the policy to exclude men from the scanning room is rooted in a belief that men are not important to the process of bringing a baby into the world. Whilst I sympathise [...]

Family Courts in the dock

Hat Tip to John Bolch at Family Lore for this story on a class action against ‘The Family Courts’ in the Hague. How – urm…audacious. I hope there is more substance to this suit than is apparent from either the company organising the action or this Telegraph article, from which one might form the impression that it [...]

Musings on new fangled equality

Just a thought. I’m not trying to be controversial or nuffing. But it did occur to me today that whilst the clamour for a presumption of equal parenting is all well and good (I agree its a solution that should be given serious consideration in most cases, but not that this should be elevated to [...]

Legal Lookalikes

There are a growing number of quasi-legal services out there for litigants in person involved in family proceedings, and it is no surprise that many of them are advertised via the internet. I come across them increasingly frequently and they come in varying degrees of professionalism: from the ramshackle campaigning group with a few seasoned [...]

Creche Course

I was disappointed to read in the Guardian this week that the campaign for a Creche in the Inns of Court for the children of barristers has STILL not got through and sounds as if it may get turned down on costs grounds. . A bunch of women were trying to get this off the [...]

Fatherhood Season

The BBC is running a Fatherhood Season starting on Monday at 9pm with A Century of Fatherhood (BBC4). More information here and here. All interesting stuff; nothing it seems dealing with single or separated fathers.

Solicitors from Hell

No surprise that the Law Society has picked up on the existence of the ‘Solicitors from Hell’ website, which it says is ‘not a credible source of reliable information about solicitors’. The only surprise is how its taken this long, but apparently as a result of some recent media attention (none that I have seen) [...]

Keep small and beautiful

…It’s your duty to be cutey-full. Binary Law thinks small is beautiful, but I wonder how many small legal aid firms are feeling the same? Small is vulnerable I think.