By the time most parents contact me, they have already formed a view of their case.
Not a vague impression. A view. They know or believe they know what the court will decide, what Cafcass will say, what their ex can and cannot do, and what their chances are. They have done their research. They have found answers that sounded authoritative, specific and reassuring, from sources that knew nothing about their actual situation.
The damage is sometimes already done before they find me.
I do not mean emotional damage, though that is real too. I mean practical damage. A letter sent that should not have been sent. A position taken in correspondence that has hardened into a starting point the other side now expects them to defend. A response to a Cafcass safeguarding letter that addressed every sentence in the other parent’s interview summary, treating recorded allegations as accepted findings. A parent who filed a C2 application, believing they needed to act urgently, without understanding what that step signals to the court, or how that application might be viewed.
These are not rare cases. They are what I see regularly.
I sit at an unusual point in the system. I work alongside people who cannot always access solicitors, who are often frightened, and who have frequently already tried to help themselves before finding me. Solicitors encounter the pre-advised client at the beginning of a professional relationship, where there is still time to reframe expectations before things go wrong. I often arrive later. At that point, some parents have already acted.
What I notice is that the most harmful content is rarely the obviously wrong content. Parents can usually recognise material that is angry or sensationalist. What causes problems is content that sounds responsible, calm, structured, confident. It fills a space that the family justice sector has not filled well enough.
Because what many parents need first is not legal advice in isolation. They need orientation so they can make effective use of legal advice.
The questions I hear most often are not legal questions. They are navigation questions. What stage am I at? What does this document mean? What is Cafcass actually doing right now? What happens at the next hearing? What should I be preparing, and what should I avoid doing?
A solicitor could answer all of these, but many parents do not feel ready to instruct one or cannot afford to. And even those who can afford advice are not always able to use it well without some basic understanding of where they are in the process first. They need to understand the landscape before they can identify what they actually need help with. Without that foundation, advice can land in a vacuum. Orientation comes before advice. The two are not the same thing, and when professionals treat them as interchangeable, they leave a gap that someone else will fill.
This gap has not appeared from nowhere. Legal aid reductions have left more families navigating proceedings without professional support from the outset. The number of litigants in person continues to rise. The system itself has grown more complex. And while information has never been more abundant, explanation, clear, honest, process-level explanation from someone who actually understands how family proceedings work, remains surprisingly scarce.
There is enormous expertise across the family justice sector with skilled professionals providing advice, but families do not always receive the orientation they need when they first engage with the process. That gap is often where misunderstandings begin.
Orientation does not belong to one profession. Solicitors, mediators, Cafcass officers, charities, support organisations and McKenzie Friends all contribute to how families understand the process. The question is not who owns that role. The question is whether families can find it early enough.
Families do not need less expertise. They need to be able to find and understand it before confusion hardens into conflict.
The family justice system is not short of expertise. It may be short of signposts.
Gergely Fried, McKenzie Friend
