On Monday 29 Jan the (children) Reporting Pilot expanded to a whole host of new courts across England and Wales, and a new Financial Remedy Reporting Pilot began. Overall this will vastly increase the potential for reporters to observe and write about the work of the family court, by reducing the number of barriers to attempting such work in those courts.
On Thursday 1 Feb our chair Lucy delivered training for Family Law Bar Association members, to explain how the pilots operate and to signpost them to resources. In keeping with our sense that many judges are coming around to the reality, need and potential benefits of increased transparency, the number of barristers who gave up an hour of their evenings on a busy weekday suggests that there is also an increasing appreciation of these issues by the bar too. 220 barristers attended and the video will be made available to those members who had childcare commitments, advocates meetings were otherwise unable to attend.
The training was aimed at lawyers rather than parents, but may be useful for solicitors and legal executives too, so we are making the video available here (pw D0CZz0&&), with the agreement of the FLBA, so that it is as widely accessible as possible.
The slides that go with the talk are available to download here (they do not amount to legal advice and are a summary of the applicable law and guidance as at the date of the talk).
The Guidance Notes we refer to in the talk can be found here (and other links to useful resources are on the last page of the slide show).
We will keep you posted as to the progress of the pilots over coming months.
We are working on expanding our small team of legal bloggers, so we have better capacity to cover hearings of interest. In the meantime bear with us. We are few and we are busy. If you are a qualified lawyer with a practicing certificate you can become a legal blogger. Those who are qualified lawyers within the meaning of PD27B but who don’t have a practising certificate (eg pupils) should contact us as we may be able to authorise you to attend as a legal blogger under our umbrella.
TP Team