Litigants in Person – Smooth on the outside crunchy on the inside

Litigants in Person are a lot like armadillos. I know this: I’ve written a book about them (Litigants in Person not armadillos). Although, unlike Harry Enfield, I’ve found them sometimes to be a bit more spiky than smooth. But I’ve been thinking about the internal bit a lot lately, because I think it’s the key [...]

Oh Look, I’ve Started a Trend

It’s been a slow burn folks – Family Courts Without a Lawyer was published in 2011, and many were the perplexed looks and guffaws from colleagues at the bar back then. They thought I was nuts, some thought I was possibly mildly treacherous. But now it’s all the rage. It’s like Gangnam or Super Samurai [...]

Absolutely Transparent

Transparency in family justice is an issue that cannot be swept under the carpet – it ain’t going away. This week Christopher Booker wrote a piece in the Telegraph (bluntly titled “Australia’s scandal of forced adoption is happening here in Britain“) in which he drew a parallel between the forced adoptions in Australia, for which Prime [...]

Family Courts Without a Lawyer – Updating Chapter

The updating chapter to Family Courts Without a Lawyer – A Handbook for Litigants in Person is now available for download on the nofamilylawyer.co.uk website. If you have a 2011 copy you can download it, or if you are buying for the first time the 2013 reprint will incorporate that chapter. Order your copy online [...]

Access all stakeholders

The Family Justice Knowledge Hub. Sounds modern dunnit? It’s not really. It’s a newsletter in word format with a boxy design, which collates details of recent and current research bearing upon matters of family justice. Boxy but useful. Like a volvo. You can subscribe to it by emailing knowledgehub@justice.gsi.gov.uk. Not that you’d know because there [...]

A little help from my McKenzie Friend – might be frowned upon

I revisited the case of Re H (Children) [2012] EWCA Civ 1797 recently, having read a blog post about it on Suesspicious Minds entitled Oh Lord, won’t you buy me, a McKenzie Friend? (Yes I know, my song title is inferior to his). As pointed out in that post its an authority which is not on [...]

Mystery Solved!

It’s Official! Self Represented Litigants are OUT. Litigants in Person are back IN. And I have PROOF. Which is good, because I’ve been chasing my tail trying to track the source of the rumours trickling out and beyond working out there was some form of guidance being circulated around the judiciary, and being told that [...]

Free ain’t easy

Lawontheweb describe themselves as “the UK’s legal information website”. They are a referral website. They also offer free legal advice. Which is nice of them. There has been a certain amount of scrutiny of the quality of that legal advice recently, most notably in the area of housing law, by Nearly Legal. I had briefly perused [...]

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 [...]