I don't want to sound like your mother, but I can't help noticing that a surprising number of family lawyers have found the ColdPlay accidental affair reveal to be irresistible fodder for a spot of marketing. And as yet another post pops into my LinkedIn feed this morning, I'm here to say: please stop. You should know better. You may not have much sympathy for the astronomer and his secret squeeze, but as any family lawyer knows they are hardly unique in having an extra-marital workplace romance - but at the very least spare a thought for the other halves and the children whose lives have also probably just imploded, supernova like, every bit as much as the couple whose embrace and horrified reactions we've all now seen on every social media platform. It is really depressing to see lawyers making a joke or a buck out of what is probably a life changing catastrophe for everyone involved - resharing the image of them perpetuates and aggravates the distress for both them and their...

There hasn't been any Pink Tape email for a long time... It isn't entirely because I've not posted anything - I have, in fact, posted a few things....In June I posted four posts - averaging one a week is not quite the rate I was going in the heyday of Pink Tape, but it was an improvement on the intermittent dribbling you are sadly more used to from me these days. A shame then that the automated whoojamaflip that tells you about those posts was broken. Anyway, by posting this, I am able to test (as of 8am on Monday) if the thing has been fixed by my website fixer, because this new post should trigger an automated email (or not). I'm hoping to write some more in July, but since opening my diary is giving me panic attacks I suspect I might not - either way, here are June's posts to be going on with: 1 June Remembering Mr Banks 15 June The small matter of fees 28 June A confusing post-script 29 June The delicate politics of the automated reply

I've changed my out of office three times in the last couple of weeks. One change to say I was so busy that I might take some time to respond (this one offended someone who wasn't as busy and who presumably thought I was just being a show off and rubbing their nose in it) One change to say I was wearing another hat for a little while and wouldn't be looking specifically at chambers emails for a bit One more to politely explain to the people who seem to think that by some alchemy the combination of the words URGENT and INJUSTICE and CORRUPTION or BIAS will magically produce free and instantaneous legal advice based upon a long stream of consciousness email without so much as an eyelash at any papers - that in fact such enquiries need to go via my clerks, and anyway I'm too busy to take on such cases. This latter change was prompted by someone who read the first OOO and took it as a sign that they should simply send a second email, this time sprinkling in a few more of the magic words...

I came across an article in the Gazette this week with the headline: Judge issues pre-trial legal aid plea after mother left alone The article refers to this judgment of DJ Keating: London Borough of Sutton v A mother & Anor [2025] EWFC 147 (B) (bonus points to the Gazette for linking to it). The judgment is a final decision in care proceedings, and the first 97 paragraphs are the main decision and conclusion (the child was to remain living with extended family due to deficiencies in the mother's parenting). The article isn't about those, but is about the last 3 paragraphs, appearing under the heading 'other matters'. They are so short I'll repeat them in full: Other matters 98. I was told that M did not have the benefit of a conference with counsel to help prepare for what was a 4 day long contested final hearing.  I am told that was because her lawyers had asked the legal aid agency to pay for 3 conferences, two of which took place at Court at an early stage of the proceedings,...

I know we're not supposed to mention fees. It's crass to talk about money - that's what clerks are for and all that. But now, it seems, we are expected to keep calm and carry on without any expectation of prompt payment of fees at all. An unspecified amount on an unspecified date. Many legal aid lawyers would say this has been the case for a long while now, so erratic is the legal aid payment system, but at least there was a process and a rule book. And in fact FAS claims, at least, were reasonably efficient. Now, as a result of the hacking of the Legal Aid Agency's systems, they can't see how much we are owed, can't accept new claims, and can't pay us. For an indefinite period of time, now acknowledged to be the situation for the foreseeable future. Here's the message we all got last week: It is unlikely that all services will be fully resolved in the short-term. As such we are now refining further plans for contingency, in the event that the need for contingency continues beyond...