Family

A law firm that narrowed the scope of its retainer after a divorcing woman negotiated her own financial settlement was nonetheless negligent in failing to give her advice on the deal.

It is not the role of courts to act as “insurers of solicitors” who “overshoot, let alone dramatically overshoot” legal services payment orders, a Family Court judge has said.

Completion of the court modernisation programme has been pushed back again, this time to March 2024, it has emerged – in a blog, rather than a Ministry of Justice annoucement.

Plans to make mediation mandatory before a separating couple can go to court is likely to reduce demand for legal services providers, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday.

A family court judge has described a case where the two parties racked up costs of £5.5m as “one of the most shameless pieces of litigation” he has ever seen.

A solicitor who failed to pass on to a client the £132,000 due to her from her divorce settlement – money the profession has now had to stump up – has been struck off.

Consumers of divorce and separation services “don’t care whether a business is regulated”, the co-founder of pioneering service amicable said this week.

Separating couples should “try almost anything” before turning to the courts, the president of the Family Division has said, arguing that there has “got to be a better way” to resolve child disputes in particular.

Women who have experienced divorce or separation and the menopause believe family lawyers and judges should have training on the issue so they can “factor it into their cases”.

Mediation should no longer be the focus of divorce information meetings and they should be run by “generalist” lawyers and social workers as well as mediators.