Family

Top family law firm Payne Hicks Beach would be prejudiced by a split trial in the negligence action brought by the woman who secured the UK’s largest ever divorce award, the High Court has ruled.

A former client of a leading family law firm should be allowed to sue over its alleged failure to advise about its own negligence, the High Court has ruled.

A solicitor campaigning for statutory leave for those suffering baby loss says she has been “crying my eyes out with tears of happiness” after learning the government is to change the law.

A law firm was negligent in failing to prepare for a three-day hearing or instruct counsel for it, a Family Court judge has ruled in making a wasted costs order.

“Substantial proportions” of divorcees do not understand the law on how assets are split, even if they used a lawyer, the first research of its kind has found.

For family mediation week in January, the Family Mediation Council suggested making a pledge. Mine was to the FMC itself: to make the accreditation process more straightforward.

The Family Court has rejected a divorcing husband’s claim that his wife’s solicitors are conflicted out of acting for her because of past work they did for the couple.

An exasperated Family Court judge has adjourned a final hearing, saying the case was in such a “disordered and chaotic state that it is simply impossible to proceed in a fair way”.

Awareness of family mediation as an alternative to legal advice is not matched by action, with nearly half of people saying their first professional port of call in a divorce would be a lawyer.

The Family Court has ordered a law firm to pay 35% of a father’s costs for its “improper, unreasonable and negligent acts”, with their client ordered to pay the rest.