Don’t Panic! The HUB is HERE!!!

Stand down everyone. The impending crisis has been averted by a little purple super hero of a website. No – Not Fathers 4 Justice, something with a rather broader appeal. Ladies and gentlemen, mothers and fathers, batmen and wonderwomen, I offer you the much promised, much trumpeted….* drum roll *…Sorting out Separation Hub. * deflating [...]

A Little Local Practice

“Local Practice” used to be a term issued with a sneer by London counsel, lording it about how parochial sticks-based courts were (in truth I may be guilty of muttering it under my breath myself occasionally when I appear in an unfamiliar court that appears to have had an article 6 bypass). However, Local Practice [...]

Family Justice Modernisation Programme Update No. Nine and Three Quarters

This press release just in from Mr Justice Schrodinger, Family Justice Modernisator: Family Justice Modernisation Programme Update No 9 3/4  I am pleased to announce that, in furtherance of the prime objective of efficiency and pace, all care cases issued after 1 January 2013 will be cascaded through the new algorithmic family justice hyper-rationalisation drive, [...]

Delegation’s all you need

An expotition I have heard a rumour of Local Authorities purporting to delegate their P.R. (obtained pursuant to interim care orders) to proposed carers (foster carers, extended family members etc) whom they support as long term carers for children in their care but who would otherwise not qualify for legal aid, as a device in [...]

Why didn’t I think of that before?

Pondering the irritations of being requested by a solicitor to attend court an hour before a hearing when the court has forgotten to order that early attendance, meaning we run the risk of attending for a hearing and being paid a pathetic £60 odd (that’s gross – rule of thumb net that down for tax [...]

Family Justice Narratives : No. 6

This is the sixth of the Family Justice Narratives. You can find out what the Family Justice Narratives are all about and how to get involved here. This narrative is in the format of an email addressed to me, and comes from Brian, a social worker. NARRATIVE NO 5 : SOCIAL WORK PERSPECTIVE Familoo, Started reading [...]

Kamikaze – you’re all thinking it, but I’ll say it out loud

I recently berated unnamed colleagues for their failure to pipe up, albeit gently. This prompted one heartfelt response from another blogger (although he need not have felt my poke was aimed at him since he had already made his views publicly known here). That post was my way of saying “Don’t rely on me to [...]

PARTY ANIMALS

This is a guest blog post written by Stephen Twist, family barrister and blogger. NB Stephen has asked for me to host this post, which I am happy to do, in order to stimulate debate. I plan in due course to post a reply to it, but in the meantime comments are welcome and encouraged [...]

Unacceptable Delay

As we move into June I am reminded of a letter I wrote to Jonathan Djanogly on 8 June last year, which has so far gone unacknowledged. It read: Dear Mr Djanogly, Family Courts without a Lawyer – A Handbook for Litigants in Person I am pleased to enclose with this letter a copy of [...]

Jubilee free blog post

As per usual I’ve hidden away a few items of interest in assorted locations, in inboxes and notes to self across my various devices – flagged and then forgotten. And this rainy Sunday evening seemed like a good time to sort them out and tick them off my list. I’ve already conquered my hangover by [...]