ALIEN COMMUNICATION

Many people accuse lawyers of using incomprehensible words and phrases not otherwise employed in the daily use of the English language. Herewiths and hereuntobefores are accordingly and justifiably frowned upon. Resolution has, therefore, worked hard to try to deliver for family lawyers precedents for courts orders and deeds that whilst unambiguous, remain clear and so far as possible are written in everyday English. That said even those precedents have struggled to rid themselves of useful catch-alls like wheresoever, howsoever and whatsoever.

The other evening I found myself in the right place at the wrong time and was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement as a result. I believe the person who handed it to me must have been from Mars or some other galactic species. Gone were the “howsoever wheresoevers” and yet I fully understood that never must word of what I had seen or heard be divulged when I read: “Forever anywhere in the Universe.” I wonder what the family courts would think if solicitors began to adopt that kind of terminology when drafting orders?

IN THE STARS

Of course I don’t believe in astrology but it never stops me glancing at my horoscope. Yesterday I was tickled by this offering on Yahoo: “Romance seems elusive. Don’t worry it will come back again….Writing, studying, and reading will bring you lots of pleasure. You might even want to try your hand at penning a love story.” Somehow I don’t think the astrologer realised that I am a divorce lawyer.

AN ATTACK ON CHILDHOOD AND THE FAMILY

Government plans to cut family legal aid represent an attack on childhood and the family, said family law association Resolution today as the Government published the response to its legal aid consultation.

Under the cuts, thousands of vulnerable parents going through the trauma of divorce and separation will be forced to struggle by without legal help – creating a serious risk that many children will lose contact with one of their parents or be subjected to unfair financial arrangements that harm their upbringing.

“Where there are serious problems between parents, stripping away affordable justice will force families into situations where children simply lose contact with one of their parents, which is wholly unacceptable in a civilized society,” said David Allison, Chair of Resolution.

“The cuts will also mean that, separated parents with primary responsibility for caring for the children may not be able to obtain a fair financial deal from the former partner.”

Under the planned cuts, large groups of vulnerable people will no longer be eligible for legal aid. The only option available to families who still qualify for legal aid will be mediation, which is a valuable non-court option but not suitable for all and requires both parties to voluntarily agree to take part.

“The Government seems determined to turn a deaf ear to the misery that these cuts could create for thousands of children and families. Not to mention the long term impact the cuts will have on wider society and the costs that will transfer to other state funded services as people develop other difficulties such as mental health issues, as they seek to work through these things on their own,” said David Allison.

“These cuts are clearly ill-considered and rushed. The consultation process has been the latest in a line of similar coalition government fiascos. It received an unprecedented 5,000 responses according to the Ministry of Justice’s own figures. It is inconceivable that these responses have been given full and proper consideration.”

The volume of responses to the consultation is not the only indicator that the proposals are deeply flawed. Both the Justice Select Committee and the Family Justice Review have expressed concerns about the Government’s plans.

The Justice Select Committee called on the Government to rethink its decision to use domestic abuse as the only means of accessing free legal advice and help, and the Government’s own Family Justice Review has warned of the potential impact on the courts of families forced to represent themselves.

“It will become virtually impossible for many struggling families to get legal aid when going through the pain of separation. For many, losing family legal aid will be a cruel and unaffordable blow,” said David Allison.

Resolution warns that the Government’s proposals could be the final nail in the coffin for many legal aid providers, leaving too few lawyers able to help the small numbers of vulnerable people who would still be protected by family legal aid.

The cuts are likely to create spiralling costs for taxpayers and chaos in the court system as increasing numbers of people, stripped of their right to legal aid and affordable justice, try to represent themselves.

ALTERNATIVE VOTING

Divorce lawyers are well used to change. Amendments to the law usually reflect changes in social attitudes and behaviour. Inundated with recent changes in practice and procedure, however, we are now waiting to see whether the country is ready for Alternative Voting. The referendum is tomorrow and the electorate is invited to indicate whether it wants to choose its MP by a process of elimination. Frequently described as a means of ensuring that nobody gets their first choice, can you imagine what will happen if it becomes a general social trend? Indeed what would happen if we begin to choose our soul mates for life using the system? With a choice of potential suitors, forget plucking the petals from a daisy as you chant, “He loves me, he loves me not.” Instead put it to the vote of family and friends; go the whole hog and use AV rather than the traditional first past the post system. As a result, according to the No Lobby, hardly anyone will end up with the one they really want. Little wonder divorce lawyers are awaiting the result of this referendum with eager anticipation.

IT'S ALL IN THE NAME

Lawyers are renowned for their straight-line thinking and pedantic natures. Sufficient for them to sometimes be dismissed socially as boring, whilst recognising that those same characteristics help them carry out their work. So, call it boring if you want or the lack of an imagination but Judith has decided to continue practising family law! “Quelle surprise,” you may even say if, by chance, you are practising your foreign language skills at the same time as reading this!

However, my professional life will now be as a consultant with Macks Solicitors, a firm founded by Nick Mack some 15 years ago which has recently expanded into both family law and Darlington. Like me, the other members of the team are collaborative law practitioners as well as members of Resolution. Although my intention is to continue to provide a personal service for clients, there will be wider support and cover from other solicitors meaning that I can hopefully now find time for some of my other interests and responsibilities.

Why Macks you might ask. Well it’s all in the name: “Matrimonial And Collaborative Know-how Simplified.”

END OF AN ERA

After 28 years and 4 months, it’s time to call it a day and I’m retiring as a partner in Latimer Hinks. I’ve always been sceptical about those who withdraw from public life on the basis they want to spend more time with their families. Now I’m of that age where I suddenly understand what they mean.

A business partnership is often described as a marriage in which you are tied together in a common purpose, through good and bad times. If that description is accurate then it must mean that I have been going through some kind of divorce, albeit amicably. In my case, however, I have 7 spouses. Imagine that, especially in a country that frowns on polygamy!

My thanks to all my colleagues at Latimer Hinks who have been working hard to make the last few weeks as easy as they could and also for their best wishes and support over the years.

So am I really going to spend all my leisure time with my family? After all Outdoor Man has recently qualified for his free bus pass, so just think of all the exciting jaunts we could go on together. Check back here in early May to see what Judith does next.

ANOTHER VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE

It is somewhat ironic that the consultation period set by the Government in relation to its plans to slash the Legal Aid budget closes on Valentine's Day, especially when it is the person encountering matrimonial difficulties who is potentially going to be hit hardest by the proposals. Resolution remains deeply concerned that the proposed changes will make it practically impossible to gain the legal advice, representation and court encouraged settlement or decisions that many people genuinely need and will result in unfair outcomes. The proposals will deny access to justice to people who need it at one of the most stressful and difficult times of their lives with potentially devastating consequences on families and children.

The Green Paper proposes that Legal Aid should no longer be available for people wishing to divorce or people whose partner wishes to divorce them and, unless there has been recent domestic violence (defined narrowly), for:
People who need legal assistance with sorting out the finances on divorce
Parents who need legal assistance in arranging contact with their children
Cohabitants where one partner needs help to claim a share of the family home

Whilst I have not undertaken legal aid work for over 12 years, I support Resolution in contending that:

1. The cuts don’t have to be made; it is a political choice to cut legal aid, not a necessity.


2. The Legal aid budget has been frozen in cash terms since 2004 despite massive increases in the volume of cases lawyers have had to handle. It accounts for less than one third of one percent of public expenditure, or one third of the annual increase in the health service budget.


3. The impact assessment shows the cuts will have a greater impact on women and the black and minority ethnic community (BAME) as 59% of legal aid clients are female and 26% BAME


4. The focus should be on reducing complex laws and procedures to help reduce the cost of justice.


5. There will be many knock on effects of these cuts leading to increased costs in other parts of the justice system and health and social services.


6. The purpose of legal aid is to ensure that nobody is unable to enforce or defend their rights for want of the resources to do so.


7. Legal aid clients are some of the most vulnerable in society and good legal representation where required is essential if they are to obtain justice
   
   

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

The Pope’s plea this week for a return to old fashioned christian names had a certain resonance for divorce practitioners. That is not, I’m quick to add, because I believe everyone should be called Mary or Joseph or that the spirit of inventiveness and innovation should be reined in but rather to make my own life easier.

Listening to local radio there were tales of children being called Vauxhall Nova and Pocahontas O’Reilly, although as any divorce lawyer will tell you they would inevitably be spelled Vorkshall and Pokahontass. You see one of the things that they never teach you at Law School, but you learn on your very first few days in an office, is that you have to ask your client to spell out the name for every member of their family.

It is inevitable that there will be variations in the spelling of Rachael, Sean and let’s not even start with Vivienne. I have however been caught out by Shardonnay and Chevaun in the past and please tell me how on earth I am meant to know that a wife’s middle name is Rows and not Rose?

A HAND IN SUPPORT

At the weekend I watched a bird of prey demonstration. Apparently Bengal Eagle Owls like to live in pairs and the female pictured above was rescued from a poor home to enjoy domestic bliss with a male counterpart, who had always enjoyed a somewhat pampered life. Needless to say they had a series of marital tiffs resulting in a separation and the female ending up working for a living. It was with something of a sense of déjà vue that my hand was therefore sought for support during the course of the display of her hunting abilities!

FOLLOWING IN THE FAMILY FOOTSTEPS

When a new client tells you that he’s come to see you because he has always viewed you as his family solicitor, your eyebrows rise. When he then tells you that you divorced his grandfather and then his mother, you know you’ve attained a certain age!

LET IT SNOW

Never being one to leave Christmas shopping until the last second, I had arranged to use my last day’s annual leave today for that very purpose. Determined not to let a few inches of snow impede the task in hand, I set off for a local shopping centre. Imagine my delight to arrive there amongst the ice and snow flurries to find it open for business as usual with only a limited number of other shoppers. “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow,” I shivered.

Wandering around I bumped into a client who shared similar thoughts. “Every snow storm has a silver lining,” she confided. “Once divorced your shopping takes half the time, with only half the people to buy gifts for!” Tempting, I thought, as I surveyed shelf after shelf seeking something called “inspiration.”

Mind if anyone is stuck trying to find the perfect Christmas gift for that would-be divorcee, it seems Lloyd Platt Limited, family lawyers in London, have incurred the criticism of the Church of England by offering divorce vouchers at £125 for a half hour’s advice. Can I disappoint readers by letting you know that Latimer Hinks will not be doing the same this festive season, but then it already offers a free no obligation half-hour session to divorce clients and its regular fees are less than that anyway.

GRUMPY AND IMPERFECT

Have you ever considered your divorce lawyer to be negative minded? Does he or she keep telling you that you can’t do that which you wanted? In fact are there times when they seem downright grumpy? If so, you could have found the perfect person to advise you!

In its current edition, Australasian Science Magazine publishes an interview with Professor Joe Forgas from the University of South Wales in which he refers to details of his recent research showing that grumpy people cope with more demanding situations than happy ones because of the way their brains process information. It seems that critical or negative thinking people can actually be better at problem solving and make fewer mistakes than their sunnier natured counterparts; presumably this explains the personality traits of various occupations including lawyers. Hooray, there is a valid reason for my imperfections!

THE ICING ON THE CAKE

Well Sunday was the big day. Outdoor Man and I dropped Apprentice Man off in a strange city, in another part of the country to start his university career. After checking the back seat carefully to ensure that he hadn’t stowed away to return with us (not that it was ever likely that he would do so), we drove away back up the M1.

Now three days later there is an unidentified gap in my daily routine, a distinct absence of smelly trainer shoes and one less to cook and clean for. Despite these clear and obvious advantages, Outdoor Man has identified me as feeling bereft!

“You need to keep yourself busy,” he has advised. “Why not take up a new hobby, like cake decorating for instance?”

Sometimes Outdoor Man has very strange ideas.

Nevertheless and in an effort to placate him I have been using the Internet to source what I am lacking when it comes to cake decorating skills. In doing so, I came across these pictures at Fresh Pics. Perhaps Outdoor Man is right after all, maybe icing cakes would be a very useful second line for a divorce lawyer!

HOLLYWOOD

Friday night and both Little Girl and Apprentice Man have disappeared out, leaving their parents with the TV and each other for company. Little Girl has gone to a friend’s for a sleepover but Apprentice Man told me he was off to Hollywood, or at least I thought that was what he said. I got quite excited at the prospect and handed him a bundle of my business cards in anticipation that he might give them out whilst he was over there; well you never know who could have been ringing for advice on Monday morning. Turns out, however, that it’s only a fancy dress party. Mind, unshaven in beanie-hat and sunglasses, I’m not sure which A list celebrity he’s supposed to be. Still so long as he keeps those glasses on, nobody will recognise him as my son!

HORSES FOR COURSES

I read today that Dylan McDermott, one of the actors who starred as a litigator in the American TV drama The Practice (another of David Kelley’s legal serials) is to represent himself in court at his own divorce hearing. Now I know that this might sound like sour grapes coming from a divorce lawyer, but had he played a doctor in ER would he be doing his own brain surgery?

THE TIMES OF MISINFORMATION

Lawyers are invariably consulted regarding the small print in documents especially when clients have signed a piece of paper without reading its contents and regrettably it returns to bite them later. In the family law context, however, it is rare for solicitors to have this problem as the English divorce laws fail to recognise contracts such as pre-nuptial agreements.

Once upon a time or was it yesterday, I had a nightmare of a day with clients continuously enquiring about a new law that excludes men from the upbringing of their children. Imagine, I had distraught fathers on the telephone and implacably hostile mothers queuing up to make appointments. Worse still, for the first hour I had no idea what anyone was talking about. I know that the Government seems to be constantly sneaking in pieces of legislation without notice but to have been given no warning at all?

Then it twigged. Just like contracts, clients had been ignoring the small print and reading the headlines only, for which see the photograph above.

FEMALE DOMINANCE

John Bolch at Family Lore today ruminated on the inevitable demise of divorce (and family lawyers) if parthenogenesis became the normal route for reproduction in the human species.

Co-incidentally Chris Evans on BBC Radio 2 yesterday speculated that with more and more females breaking through the glass ceiling, the evolution of the human species is likely to speed up and women will become like many of the female gender in the insect and reptile kingdoms. They will in essence rule the world, allow men to exist only to impregnate them and then, of course, eat them. There will be presumably be no point in divorce lawyers then either.

Now in isolation I would have dismissed both of these predictions as pure self indulgent nonsense on the part of those advancing them. However, to hear of two similar theories in such a short space of time has to lead you to wonder if there really can be smoke without fire!

HAUNTED

Last night in the company of fellow members of our local business club, I enjoyed a tour behind the scenes at Darlington’s Civic Theatre. As well as getting to stand on the stage, we peeped at areas the audience never gets to see whilst the manager entertained us with ghost stories. It seems that Flyman Jim treads the rafters; Signor Pepi, the original owner, occasionally comes through from his private quarters to observe the odd ballet and an unnamed gent in top hat and tails rocks on a seat in the dress circle. All three are purportedly trapped between this world and the next, condemned to revisit old haunts in perpetuity.

None of the spectres made an appearance during our visit. If they had, and drawing on my expertise as a divorce lawyer, was there anything that I could have said to try to help them out of their predicament?

I don’t think that “You have to let go, look to the future and get on with your life,” would somehow have been appropriate.

FREEZING FOG

I don’t believe that the temperature crept above freezing level today and County Durham was blanketed in fog. I know that because I drove the full length of it to get to court in Newcastle. At least the sun was shining there even if the air temperature remained Arctic-like. Near to the court is a busy pedestrian thoroughfare where most lawyers, barrister or solicitor, pass and today they were all well muffled up.

As I walked through I met an old, non-legal acquaintance. “Makes a change to see so many lawyers with their hands in their own pockets for once,” he remarked.

Maybe it was because I’d already heard that joke on the radio this morning as I drove up the motorway, or maybe I felt a tinge of guilt having just accepted a client’s kind offer of a cup of coffee; either way I felt mildly irritated and would recommend this entry in John Bolch's blog at Family Lore for a contrary view.

P.S. He was an estate agent.

THE DEFLATING LILO

With the temperature barely rising above four degrees centigrade recently it's somewhat strange to find myself recalling summer days in the sun. Today memories of the hours spent splashing in the hotel pool came flooding back and particularly the fun we had trying to float on a lilo bed with a puncture. It didn’t matter how much air we breathed into it, it still went down and so did we.

Matrimonial cases can be the same. You can throw as much money as you want at trying to fight a hopeless cause but when your solicitor tells you that it’s time to settle you really have to listen. All solicitors have clients who tell them that they’d rather pay legal fees than their spouse, but the sad truth is they are going to end up paying both. It’s just like the lilo bed, you put air into it or throw money at the lawyers, but if you’re still going to sink at the end of the day, considering damage limitation first is usually a good idea.