Blog
Expert Witnesses: The Crisis in Family Courts
This is a first post from Malvika Jaganmohan, one of our new contributors. Malvika tweets as @MalvikaJaganmo1 Any family lawyer will tell you that finding a competent independent expert who can report in a timely manner is the Holy Grail of the family justice...
The family court in an era of austerity: problems and priorities – Sir James Munby
The online divorce project has been a “triumphant success”, according to a recent speech by Sir James Munby, but the family justice system as a whole is “inadequately funded and resourced”
Who are the Beatles? And can they fix my computer?
The press love a story about out of touch judges - think 'Who are The Beatles?'. And so with this headline in the Mail Online : 'Technophobe' judges delay £1.2bn justice system reforms as plan to use new software in family court hearings is dropped It appears that...
Transparency – where next?
This blog post originally appeared as an article in the May 2019 issue of Family Law at [2019] Fam Law 563. I consider it a great honour to have been invited to be the Patron of The Transparency Project. It is only just over 4 years ago that the Transparency Project's...
Fight for Life: Best interests, sick children and the Battleground
Manchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and M (Acting by her Children's Guardian) and OA In the recent case of Manchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v OA , the court had to decide the fate of a 13-month-old-girl, known as M, who was...
Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re out to sue me…
The Transparency Project was founded in part to counter dodgy headlines and over-simplified or inaccurate media reports about all things family law. Every so often, distortion of what a case *really* says or means comes from within the system. This is one such...
It ain’t that easy…
This is a guest post from Themis (pseudonym), a parent with experience of the family courts. It was originally sent to us as a comment in response to our post A Plea for Help, in which we put out a call for writers. We felt it deserved its own post: Must be a bit...
How do family courts use ‘barring orders’?
One of the tasks of the new review of family courts and domestic abuse announced last month by the MoJ is to examine courts’ use of barring orders. (By the way, we don't know when the three months for the review starts, although we are now three weeks in from the...
How does the family court deal with domestic abuse? A snapshot – Part 2
This is Part 2. You can read Part 1 here. A (A Child) [2019] EWFC B16 (12 March 2019) In this case, the court was making a final decision in care proceedings. The decision to be made was whether a child could be cared for by both of his parents, just his mother...
How does the family court deal with domestic abuse? A snapshot
This is a first post from Sophie Smith-Holland, one of our new contributors. Sophie tweets as @SSmithHolland. The post is divided into two parts. This is Part One. The question of how the Family Court deals with domestic abuse has had a huge amount of public...