Pink Tape

a blog from the family bar

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 [...]

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 [...]

Go Solo To Gain Tactical Advantage?

A letter to the Law Society Gazette last week from a family solicitor suggested that the represented litigant is now at a distinct disadvantage when appearing opposite a litigant in person. Caroline Goorney wrote that: “The rise of the litigant in person is an inevitable fact of life, but their favourable treatment by the courts is [...]

Manifesto for Family Justice

This morning (24th October) the FLBA together with the Bar Council and an alliance of other organisations publishes a Manifesto for Family Justice.   The alliance, which comprises the Association of Lawyers for Children, the Bar Council, CAADA, the Children’s Commissioner, the Family Law Bar Association, Gingerbread, Liberty, the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, Resolution and Women’s Aid, has called upon the Government to: ·         Protect vulnerable women and [...]

LiP Service

Litigants in Person are in the news. The penny seems to be dropping that they are becoming the norm rather than the exception. The Gazette carries a piece on the soaring numbers of LiPs, based upon a recent and stark increase in demand upon the services offered by the PSU at the RCJ, in particular [...]

Litigants in Person v Counsel

Our latest Professional Update from the Bar Standards Board tells us that there has been “an unprecedented increase in complaints from Litigants in Person”. The figures are not astronomical at 35 in the year to date, but apparently this is more than the total number of complaints received in 2009 and 2010 combined. The author [...]

We don’t need no Ed-ew-ca-shun

Earlier this week I spent a day on a Court of Protection course. Just as we were all entering a post lunch semi-vegative state, up strode Wall LJ to the podium. He is both President of the Family Division and of the Court of Protection. Readers of this blog may find his brief address interesting. [...]

What Kind of Debate Should We Be Having About Domestic Violence?

This post is a guest blog post written by Sarah Phillimore. Sarah is a family barrister with over 15 years of experience. She tweets as @SVPhillimore and this is her first foray into blogging. This post arose from a tweet from @change4victims calling for support for an e-petition entitled “review of access laws for domestic abusers”, subsequently retweeted by @womensaid. The petition [...]

Koo-ee! We’re over here love!

Where are all the feminist lawyers? Discuss. Kat Watson’s essay on the topic was posted on The F Word last week. I was alerted to it by a critical blog post in response written by another female lawyer type who had been irked by it (that post has now been removed hence no link). It [...]

Clare’s Law

Today the Guardian published a piece I wrote about the proposed Clare’s Law. You can read it here: Why Clare’s Law won’t prevent domestic violence  You might also like to read a rather more eloquent discussion of the same topic by Libby Brooks, also in the Guardian: ‘Clare’s law’ offers nothing but empty empowerment  Still haven’t [...]

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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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