FLBA Resolutions

The following resolutions were unanimously approved at the national meeting of the Family Law Bar Association on 17th September 2011. They have been sent to the Government : The FLBA calls on the Government to include in the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (“the Bill”) a specific provision requiring the Lord Chancellor, in the [...]

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 [...]

Media Access & Reporting

Thanks to Adam Wagner at UKHR Blog for alerting me to today’s* publication of “A joint publication of The President of the Family Division, the Judicial College and the Society of Editors” entitled “Media Access & Reporting”, which comes just as I was about to put finger to keyboard and begin to type a blog [...]

Legal Aid Reform – Comment

A link to some more stuff I said elsewhere on the topic of legal aid reform, and more importantly to what some other people (including a not-so-anonymous blogger) said about legal aid reform: Falling on deaf ears, By Jean-Yves Gilg, Giles Peaker, Lucy Reed & Juliette Frangos

Summary of Legal Aid Reforms to Family Law

Nearly Legal has provided an excellent summary of the legal aid reforms in respect of housing and other areas of law: Ask not for whom the bill tolls. Due to other commitments I have not been able to put together a full analysis of the Bill insofar as is relates to family law. That will [...]

Ministerial Statement on Legal Aid

WRITTEN MINISTERIAL STATEMENT MINISTRY OF JUSTICE Proposals for the reform of punishment, rehabilitation, sentencing and legal aid The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Kenneth Clarke QC): Today I will lay before Parliament the Government’s responses to two important consultations on the future of the justice system – Breaking the cycle: effective punishment, [...]

Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders Bill Published

The Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders Bill (LASPOB for not-so-short?) was published earlier today. And then rapidly un-published. However, the ever excellent ilegal was quick off the mark and had saved it before it was magicked away again. You can read the bill here. From a quick whizz through insofar as it is relevant to [...]

LAG & Law Society Call for Draft Legal Aid Bill

LAG and the Law Society have today written a joint letter to the Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke calling on the government to publish its proposals for the reform of legal aid as a draft bill to be scrutinised by a special joint committee of the House of Commons and the House of [...]

Telegraph Poll

Hands up who else just keeps tripping over yet another eye roller of an article in The Telegraph? You don’t even need to buy the thing, people just keep tweeting and facebooking humdinger after humdinger. I don’t want to be constantly confronted with Telegraphisms but I just can’t bring myself to ignore them. This time [...]

Questions in the House

There have been a number of questions in The House on family legal aid reform. I see from Lords of the Blog (the House blog) that Baroness Deech, whose pronouncements on family law I do not always agree with, is due to ask a further question. Good on her.