Family

National law firm Simpson Millar has launched a single lawyer divorce service for couples committed to an “amicable solution”, following a prediction by Resolution last year that this was the future.

The founder of the latest firm to move to employee ownership said his decision was inspired by the co-operative movement as it aims to become the largest family law practice in the country.

The High Court has refused to grant an injunction to a lawtech start-up so that it can gain immediate access to the software, source code and other documents necessary to complete its divorce service.

A High Court judge married to a senior Conservative politician refused to recuse herself from dealing with a contact dispute that involved a disgraced ex-Tory MP, it has emerged.

The High Court has allowed a Kent law firm to come off the record for a woman whose divorced husband has waged a campaign of harassment against it and her for many years.

The High Court has refused a litigation funder’s bid to use privileged material to overturn a divorce settlement which it says deliberately provides no assets for the wife to pay the £1m she owes it.

A project seeks to make family law easier to understand and less hostile – between both parties and lawyers – has been launched by a London solicitor.

Justice secretary Dominic Raab is “in the market for something quite drastic and bold” to reduce the number of private law family cases in the courts, he said yesterday in a wide-ranging discussion.

A future where lawyers act for both sides of divorces as a matter of course and others exit regulation to offer a new kind of service has been sketched out by Resolution.

A significant number of expert witnesses who have been appeared in court remotely over the past 18 months say barristers have been “less aggressive” in their cross-examination.

The lawyers are the only beneficiaries of a “nihilistic” divorce dispute that has cost £2.3m in legal fees, with the couple’s children the main losers, a High Court judge has ruled.

A pilot version of an unbundled family law service for litigants in person has enabled them to save 70% on legal fees and is to be expanded; meanwhile, the SRA is to run its own unbundling pilot.

The High Court has dismissed 28 divorce petitions drafted by online service iDivorces because they contained “absolutely identical” particulars. The company said the judge was “very understanding”.

The mobile phone of top solicitor Baroness Shackleton was hacked on the authority of the ruler of Dubai and she was alerted to it by Cherie Blair QC, an extraordinary Court of Appeal ruling has revealed.

There is “strong justification” for increasing 129 court fees by inflation, backdated to 2016, the Ministry of Justice has said.