Knowledge and resources

With mental wellbeing for family lawyers even more in focus now, it is worth remembering that despite the scary statistics, there are resources and strategies to hand…

Family Law Partners and Mills & Reeve LLP have both been running their own Therapeutic Supervision schemes for some time. The firms are different in size and structure, but both have found a model that works for them.

The charity OnePlusOne has five decades of research into family breakdown and has developed models, programmes and publications that deliver. As lockdown-related family problems surge, the charity asks if the DD&S Bill might offer some glimmers of hope…

With the outbreak of Covid-19 many of you will not be at your offices to receive your printed copy of The Review. Each issue we post the articles for The Review in the Knowledge and Resources section of the website to make them easily accessible and this month we will also be releasing the PDF of the whole issue online here.

In the conclusion of a two-part article on the modern law of pre-nups, we explore how the law has developed with respect to pre-nuptial agreements since Radmacher and reflect on what this may mean for the future.

In this article for The Review David Burrows takes a look at the case law resulting from the period February to March 2020.

Family Law in Partnership reflections arising from Simon Sugar’s presentation for Resolution, January 2020 for The Review.

This case highlights a number of issues, including the approach to valuing/ capitalising income streams, the importance of the valuer’s market knowledge, and discounts to capitalised figures to reflect non-matrimonial source of income stream. It also shows the encouragement of amortisation and step down, and involved the phenomenon of “hot-tubbing” experts.

The fallout from the controversial judgment in F v H and what it will mean for judicial training. In this article for The Review Anna-Laura Lock and Selena Arbe-Barnes take a look at this new situation.

Is the Domestic Abuse Bill the rescue craft sought by the family justice system? This article for The Review takes a look at it.

With so many people’s financial positions likely to change suddenly, what are the chances of setting aside or varying an order made in more stable times?

With the global economic markets in turmoil, valuations being undermined immediately, many businesses on the edge of an abyss, the housing market effectively frozen and widespread furlough leave and redundancies, there cannot be a more difficult time for financial remedy practitioners to advise clients on the merits (or not) of pursuing or settling financial claims.

With Covid-19 shifting cases overnight to digital-only, there is an urgent need to consider transparency issues, as well as ensuring our clients are not being left behind in the new processes.

On 17 March 2020 the Family Division noted in a statement that “there is an urgent need to increase the use of telephone and video technology immediately to hold remote hearings where possible. Emergency legislation is being drafted which is likely to contain clauses that expand the powers in criminal courts to use technology in a wider range of hearings. The Civil Procedure Rules and Family Procedure Rules provide for considerable flexibility. We also encourage you to work with your local court staff to identify work which could be done from home.”

Changes to the financial remedy courts that had been planned before readers had heard of Covid-19 may turn out to have been quite spectacularly well-timed…

This article tries to answer some of the questions now faced by separated parents worried about how the current events and government advice will impact on their child arrangements – whether existing or sought. I have seen and read many social media comments about this topic. There seems to be a wide divergence of views from family lawyers up and down the country.

The Covid-19 lockdown is an incredibly dangerous time for survivors of domestic abuse. It has been widely reported that domestic abuse organisations have seen a huge increase in contact since the lockdown began. Refuge, for example, has reported an increase of online traffic to its National Domestic Abuse Helpline of 700%. Following media coverage of the helpline, calls and logs on 6 April 2020 were up by 120% compared to the previous day.

As family practitioners make a first set of emergency responses to the Covid pandemic, here are some pointers to the main issues and some sources of guidance.

The information gathering application for family lawyers has extended its capacity into a number of new client types.

First let’s recap: for those who aren’t aware, Engage is a web application that helps prospective clients, in their own time, put together all the information a family lawyer requires ahead of a first meeting – ensuring bespoke advice can be given at that first meeting. Engage enhances the initial consultation for both the family lawyer, as they have all the facts, and for the client, as they feel prepared and informed ahead of the meeting.

An invitation to the Spanish courts provided one Resolution member – and member of the international committee – with an excellent opportunity to survey the main differences between Spanish and English & Welsh family law.

Following Re TT in the last issue, we now have P (Transgender applicant for declaration of valid marriage) [2019]: a cautionary tale to ensure that a gender recognition certificate is obtained.