On February 10th 2011 debates concerning the future of marriage took place in the House of Lords, and in the great debating chambers of both Oxford and Cambridge universities. Across the board marriage unhesitatingly received the thumbs up, but for varied reasons.
Direct access is pitting solicitors and barristers against each other when instead we should be working together, says Marilyn Stowe. When I decided to become a solicitor and not a barrister, my decision was based on a number of reasons – but not least that I wanted contact with real clients on a daily basis. Also, as a student I worked for both solicitors and barristers and I didn’t like the more theatrical antics of the Bar.
Lord Wilson delivered a frank, easy to understand speech last night in London. It was noteworthy because he is the first senior figure in family law to publicly announce the imminent arrival of a new form of financial dispute resolution in family law.
Ours certainly isn’t the biggest law firm out there but even so, I’m incredibly proud – not to mention a little incredulous – whenever I consider how far we have come from inauspicious beginnings. Next year marks the opening of our third office, in Central London, and also our 30th anniversary.
The long-awaited Family Justice Review, published today, presented a golden opportunity to review and recommend changes to existing law. Instead the Review panel, chaired by former senior civil servant David Norgrove and populated by bureaucrats and children experts, has failed families in crisis. Hopes that the Family Justice Review would propose groundbreaking reforms, expanding family law’s current, tunnel-vision focus upon children to the rights and needs of all parties – such as fathers and grandparents - have been dashed. Twenty-year-old law, creaking with age and under the weight of all its pitfalls, remains in need of an overhaul.
Apparently there are millions of fathers around the world who are, unwittingly, raising other men’s children as their own. Worse still, if it can be worse, they have all been duped at the hands of wicked mothers, who care not for a partner’s “right” to know the truth.
Baroness Hale of Richmond, the only woman judge in the Supreme Court, is “dismayed” that so many judges belong to the Garrick Club.
This is a slightly expanded version of my latest post for The Times, which appears on The Experts blog today. It has now been more than a year since the landmark Court of Appeal judgment in the case of Imerman v Tchenguiz. The decision, condemned by family lawyers at the time, has meant that litigants are no longer permitted to seize papers and documents left lying around, if it is deemed that …
Family lawyers are often reticent to discuss what is really going on in their practices – so Grant Thornton’s Matrimonial Survey provides a welcome opportunity to find out. This annual report from family lawyers, now in its ninth year, has become a must-read for those of us with an interest in what the accountancy firm calls the “divorce arena”. Grant Thornton doesn’t publish the number of UK firms which take part, nor their locations, but has canvassed the opinions of 101 family lawyers based on their client work in 2010. This year, for the first time, I chose not to take part. I’ll admit that I was more interested to find out if our family law colleagues’ experiences concurred with the conclusions of Stowe Family Law’s recent in-house survey. As the UK’s largest specialist family law practice, our firm acts for clients not just in London but around the country, providing its own snapshot of the “divorce arena”.
Legal fees can get many people hot under the collar. Never more so than in family law cases where the subject matter is personal and emotionally charged, and when a client can think of far more pleasant ways to spend his or her hard earned cash.
The Times reports that radical reform of the selection of judges is needed to break the stranglehold of white Oxbridge males at the top of the judiciary. The report notes that in the past ten years, not a single solicitor has been appointed directly to the High Court.
This is my latest post for The Times, which appears on The Experts blog today. What was really happening on Tuesday? Was Ken Clarke’s sentencing policy truly in tatters? Did his proposals ever stand a chance of implementation? Surely not. So …
John Bolch of Family Lore recently posed the question, Has Blawging Become “Establishment”? He wrote: One of the beauties of blogging is that there are (virtually) no rules as to what format a …
Marilyn Stowe I chuckled when I read that the Bar Standards Board has given its approval to removing the prohibition on barristers conducting litigation work. If barristers offer litigation services, competing alongside solicitors, I think they will find the work far tougher than they imagine. I also believe that it’s a pointless move. It aims to maintain the integrity of the Bar – …
Why I think grandparents’ legal rights are fit for purpose by guest blogger David Milburn
Q&A on finances and divorce with Marilyn Stowe – Wednesday February 8th
HuffPost Divorce: The Top 10 Stereotypical Marriage Wreckers
Holocaust Memorial Day: why we must all protect our culture of tolerance
Marathon woman (From Solicitors Journal)
Marilyn Stowe is the Senior Partner at Stowe Family Law LLP. Stowe Family Law LLP is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. SRA ref 469401. Stowe Family Law LLP is registered with Companies House, ref. 331570, and registered for VAT, number 918 5722 04. A list of members is available for inspection at our Harrogate office.
Comments