Guest Post: Social media – our master or our servant?

This is a guest post written by Sarah Phillimore (@svphillimore), a barrister at St John’s Chambers. It arises from a discussion Sarah, myself and other colleagues had last weekend about the difficulty in obtaining s26 contact orders in placement proceedings and the spate of media reports of teenagers tracked down on Facebook by their biological [...]

Mediation Marathon

I’ve just spent the first of six days training to be a family mediator. It’s been daunting but exciting, interesting but exhausting. Tomorrow the role play begins. It must be done. Eyes on the prize an’ all that. However, whilst not overbrimming with enthusiasm for role play, nor for losing my precious weekend to such [...]

The Daily Mail and the Moral Crusade

Sir Paul Coleridge may not be on a moral crusade but his Marriage Foundation has certainly inspired the crusading spirit in the Daily Mail (download pdf of article here: It’s down to the judges to mend our divorce laws – they trashed them in the first place By STEVE DOUGHTY if you don’t want to give google [...]

The man who built his house on sand

No man can stop the tide. Sir Paul Coleridge is to build a Marriage Foundation, to strengthen the institution of marriage and to counter the “scourge of society” family breakdown. “Brave Brave Brave Bra-ave Sir Canute!” *sung to the tune of Brave Sir Robin from Monty Python*. We are indeed a society awash with family [...]

Onwards and upwards

No, I’m not going to bore you with more whining about the state of my health (much better thanks – have got that post-illness warpdrive thing going on), nor am I going to do a run down of 2011 or my new year’s resolution for 2012. But I feel that on this, my last evening [...]