Pink Tape

a blog from the family bar

Disingenuous Cowards

Ken Clarke has aroused the ire of many lawyers and many non-lawyers of this week for his remarks in an interview with the James Lewis for the International Bar Association. You can watch the video here. Following is an imperfect transcript of the relevant bits. The part that has really worked everyone up into a [...]

And for tonight’s rant…

…I shall mostly be complaining about section 20 of the Children Act. It’s a well intentioned provision, but often exploited and misused in ways which make my blood boil. s20, for those who don’t know, is a provision which places a duty upon Local Authorities to accommodate children who have no available parent or who [...]

The crumbs from my table…

You’ve not heard much from me lately. That’s not because I don’t love you anymore but rather because I’ve been focusing on other projects. In particular on the redesign and relaunch of the FLBA website with Mike from Straybark*.   Today I am on a return train from Chester to Bristol, watching sheep and pheasants [...]

Family Courts without a Lawyer: Review

This review by Chris Barton, Professor of Family Law and VP Family Mediators Association, was first published in Family Law November 2011 (Fam Law [2011] 1310) and is republished with kind permission of Jordans. Family Courts without a Lawyer: A Handbook for Litigants in Person Lucy Reed, Bath Publishing, 1st edn, 2011, £29.50, paperback, 308 [...]

FOI about LIPs from MOJ is FFS and OMG then AAK

I recently received a response to my Freedom of Information Request to the Ministry of Justice concerning private family cases and litigants in person. It’s a little impenetrable, so to help break through to what it means I’m going to run through it. First, read the response here. The information comes from the HMCS FamilyMan [...]

A Brief Adjournment

Typical. I get an invite to join the Guardian Legal Network and then I’m too too busy to post anything for like E-VAR! *teenaged eye roll* So there are a few things I’ve had my eye on but which I haven’t had time to get a post together about…And those things are these: The Family [...]

Jones v Kernott

Here is a thing I wrote for the Comment is Free section of The Guardian website: Cohabitees’ property rights: still as clear as mud (I wanted to call it Gordian Knot, but that was a bit too cryptic…) And here is Hayley Trim’s excellent piece on the case, aimed at lawyers rather than punters: A [...]

Jealously Protected

The Guardian runs a series of articles today about the Court of Protection: here (“The court of protection: defender of the vulnerable or shadowy and unjust?”), here (“Court of protection should be open to public scrutiny, says leading judge”) and here (“Court of protection must balance needs of vulnerable with rights of family”) in which variously the reader can [...]

That Barnardos Survey

Anyone else rather uneasy at the stories last week about feral children and despairing adults arising from a survey of attitudes conducted for Barnardos? Me too. Read this on the Straight Statistics website then: Giving Britain’s children a bad name (H/t John Bolch on Family Lore who has got there before me a number of times [...]

BAD TIMING

This blog is not just about family law. As is required pursuant to the law of sod I am too darn busy to post anything much about the biggest family law news for some time, the publication of the Family Justice Review. And since this is not my day job it’s the blog that has [...]

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  • About

    A blog in which I ricochet from too serious to too flippant, and alternate between a bit clever, a bit interesting and a bit ranty: Pink Tape neatly functions as both a blog about family law and a therapeutic escape valve for me. >>more




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