Family Courts without a Lawyer – A Handbook for Litigants In Person

  The Interim Report of the ongoing Family Justice Review notes that, “Adults find the system confusing and characterised by legalese whether they are involved in public or private law…In private law, it is difficult for adults to navigate the system on their own. Two anonymous respondents to the call for evidence highlight this. For one, “it [...]

Family Courts Without a Lawyer: A Handbook for Litigants in Person

These are dark days for many of us financially speaking. And securing legal advice and representation when relationships break down is only going to become tougher – there are swingeing cuts to legal aid looming, and few people have money to spend on lawyers. . It’s tough enough dealing with relationship breakdown, and tougher still [...]

Barrister in ‘No Duty to Child’ Shock

One of the first things we are taught in bar school is that our job is to ‘promote and protect fearlessly and by all proper and lawful means the lay client’s best interests and do so without regard to his own interests or to any consequences to himself or to any other person’ (pa 303). Hand [...]

McKenzie Friends

Just as I was pondering what I might blog about this weekend an email arrived in my inbox about an article I once wrote on McKenzie Friends. The email contained some information concerning the alleged actions of a representative of a father’s rights group who had been acting as a McKenzie friend in children proceedings. It was [...]