It is of course impossible to predict what will be the big stories in the world of family law in 2023. Apart from a few things for which dates are already fixed, it is largely a guessing game.
And whatever predictions one makes there will no doubt be bigger stories, and some predictions may simply not come to pass.
Undaunted by any of that, here is a list of five things that MAY occupy the family law headlines next year:
As anyone who follows the news will know, the Government has for some time been considering introducing a Bill of Rights, to replace the Human Rights Act 1998. The Bill of Rights Bill is now going through parliament, and may reach the statute book next year.
The Bill will continue to give effect to the same rights and freedoms drawn from the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to respect for private and family life, which is often invoked in family law proceedings.
However, the Bill will change the way in which those rights are interpreted, with the aim of ensuring that they are considered in view of the “UK’s distinct contexts”, rather than closely following the way they are interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights, as is the case now.
This may of course have an effect upon family law in this country, although whether it does, and what the effect will be, remains to be seen.
The accepted wisdom has always been that financial claims made by one spouse against another will expire upon the death of the respondent to the claim.
But that may change next year, when the Supreme Court considers an appeal by a wife against a decision that her financial claim against her former husband was dismissed following his death.
The wife’s claim was for financial provision following a foreign divorce. Such claims follow similar rules to financial claims following a divorce in this country.
The parties were divorced in Pakistan in 2012. In 2017 the wife made a financial claim against the husband in this country. The claim proceeded, but the husband died in 2021, before it could be adjudicated.
It should be pointed out that the spouse, or former spouse, of someone who dies can also make a claim for financial provision from the deceased spouse’s estate.
Changes are afoot in the way that the courts deal with disputes between parents over arrangements for their children. It seems certain that these changes, or at least most of them, will happen, although whether that will be in 2023 is not yet clear.
The changes include a greater emphasis upon helping couples resolve their disputes out of court; a more investigative approach by the courts, rather than the current adversarial approach which often exacerbates animosity between the parties; a greater emphasis upon the wishes of the child concerned; and a system of reviewing court decisions at a future date, to ensure that they are working as intended.
Care proceedings are supposed to be completed within 26 weeks.
But that time limit is regularly exceeded. Early in 2022 they were taking an average of 49 weeks.
To address this, the President of the Family Division issued a call for all involved in care proceedings to renew their efforts to keep to the 26 week time limit. His aim is for the necessary change in working practices to ‘go live’ in all local authorities and courts throughout England and Wales by mid-January.
Hopefully, therefore, we will see a huge improvement in the timeliness of care proceedings in 2023.
Lastly, the Government recently indicated that it is conducting a review of the law of financial provision on divorce.
The law used to decide financial provision on divorce has remained largely unaltered for the last fifty years, despite calls for reform from various quarters. In particular, many feel that the current law is too uncertain, with the result that more cases are going to court than should do, because it is unclear how cases should be decided.
There have also been calls to make pre-nuptial agreements binding, rather than the present position whereby agreements are not binding upon the courts of England and Wales, and will only be upheld if the court considers that that would be a fair outcome.
Quite what changes to the law the Government is considering, and whether they will see the light of day in 2023, remains to be seen.
Walker Family Law are award-winning family solicitors and are recognised as one of the leading family law firms in the South West of England. For expert advice, please contact the team.
As the year draws to a close it is time to look back at the top happenings in the world of family law over the last twelve months.
It has certainly been an eventful year. However, apart from one stand-out story, it is not particularly easy to say which stories should make the top 5 family law stories of 2022. The following is therefore a personal list – a list written by someone else may look very different.
In the best traditions of such things, the list is presented in reverse order:
At number five is the decline in marriage, and what it may mean for family law.
In May the Office for National Statistics published its latest annual figures for the number of marriages that took place in England and Wales, for the year 2019.
The figures showed that marriage rates for opposite-sex couples have now fallen to their lowest level on record since 1862. In 2019, for men, there were 18.6 marriages per 1,000 unmarried men, and for women, there were just 17.2 marriages per 1,000 unmarried women.
Meanwhile, the number of couples choosing to cohabit without getting married is at its highest level ever, representing about one in five couples. Clearly, there is a shift in society away from marriage towards cohabitation.
But unlike a married person a cohabitant has no right to make financial claim against their former partner should the relationship break down. This has led to calls for limited rights to be given to cohabitants, including by the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee.
Unfortunately, the Government has rejected the recommendation, meaning that financially weaker parties will continue to suffer economic hardship upon cohabitation breakdown.
At number four is a story with a local connection.
A new approach to resolving children disputes between parents is being piloted in courts in Bournemouth and Weymouth in Dorset, and Caernarfon, Mold, Prestatyn and Wrexham in North Wales.
The new approach involves more help for parents to resolve disputes out of court, and a more investigative, problem-solving approach to dealing with disputes that do go to court.
Other aspects of the new approach are giving greater weight to the voice of the child, and reviewing cases some months after rulings are handed down, to ensure that decisions made are working well.
If the pilots are successful the new approach could form the basis for how these cases are dealt with in future, throughout England and Wales.
At number three is a piece of legislation that was actually passed last year, but was not implemented until July this year. On the 21st of July new rules were brought in barring domestic abusers from cross-examining their victims in court.
Very often those accused of domestic abuse are unrepresented when the case goes to court, particularly as legal aid is not available to them. This has meant that they have cross-examined their victims themselves.
This has in turn led to concerns that abusers were using the process as a means of extending their abuse, and that victims were being re-traumatised by their experiences in court.
So the Government introduced very welcome legislation to bar alleged abusers from cross-examining their alleged victims in court.
Instead, the cross-examination will be done by a court-appointed legal professional, to ensure that justice continues to be done fairly for both sides.
At number two we have perhaps the most worrying family law story of 2022: huge delays in the family courts.
The delays applied both to public law children cases involving social services (mostly care proceedings) and private law disputes between parents, where social services weren’t involved.
As to public law cases, what is hopefully the peak delay was reached in the first quarter of the year, when cases were taking an average of 49 weeks. And it must be remembered that there is a statutory time limit of 26 weeks for such cases. In that quarter only 17% of cases were completed within that limit.
As to private law cases, things weren’t much better. Figures from HM Courts & Tribunals Service revealed that in August the average time for such cases to be dealt with was 43 weeks.
Initiatives are under way to reduce these delays, and one must hope that in 2023 the news will be better.
And lastly at number one the biggest family law story of 2022 must surely be the long-awaited introduction of no-fault divorce.
In the biggest change to divorce law in England and Wales for fifty years, in April the old fault-based divorce system (unless the parties had been separated for two years) was finally swept away, and replaced by a modern system that does away with the need for one spouse to blame the other for the breakdown of the marriage.
All that is required now to get a divorce is a statement by one or both of the parties that the marriage has irretrievably broken down.
The big hope is that this change will reduce animosity between divorcing couples, thereby making it more likely that they will be able to resolve issues relating to children and finances by agreement.
And no-fault divorce has proved popular. Statistics showed that there were more than 12,000 divorce applications in April, compared to some 6,000 digital divorce applications under the old system in April 2021.
Some argue that the New Year is the busiest time of the year for new divorces, with many people apparently deciding to ‘do away with the old’ and make a new start in life by getting divorced. We will not get into that argument, but if you are contemplating divorce then you will want to make it as painless as possible. Hopefully, the following tips will help.
The first thing to understand is that…
It is a commonly held belief that divorce has to be painful, but is this true?
The breakdown of a marriage is almost always painful, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all divorces are painful. Divorce is merely the legal process of dissolving the marriage and, more importantly, making the necessary arrangements for the future.
It is quite possible to get through the process without adding to the pain of the marriage breakdown. The secret is to agree matters, rather than argue them through the courts. And a little basic knowledge will help make agreement more likely. To explain, we will break the divorce process down into its main parts.
A divorce essentially involves three steps, assuming that there are dependent children and no domestic abuse issues. In order of importance they are:
Obviously, when parents separate they will need to sort out arrangements for their children, in particular what time the children will spend with each parent. This may involve the children living with one parent and having contact with the other, or it may involve the children sharing their time between the two households.
Sorting out arrangements for children can be the most emotive aspect of divorce, which in turn can lead to parents behaving in ways that are not actually in the children’s best interests.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that you must put the welfare of the children first. Now, most parents involved in children disputes will insist that they are doing this, but you should try to take a step back and ask yourself: am I really doing this for the children, or am I just doing it for me? All too often it is the latter, perhaps motivated by a desire to ‘get back’ at the other parent.
The other important thing to understand is that the law expects children to continue to have as close a relationship as possible with both parents. Only in very exceptional circumstances will this not be the case.
If both parents understand and accept these two important things from the outset they are much more likely to be able to sort out arrangements by agreement.
And remember, if you can agree matters directly with the other parent, then you can always try mediation, rather than contested court proceedings.
The other matter that needs to be resolved is financial arrangements, including what is to happen to the former matrimonial home.
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to sorting out finances by agreement is unrealistic expectations. By that we mean that each party will erroneously believe that they are entitled to more than the law provides for. A breadwinning spouse may, for example, believe that their financial contribution towards the marriage automatically entitles them to the lion’s share of the assets.
It may therefore come as a surprise to many that the starting-point in most cases is an equal division of the assets. Only if that is not appropriate will there be a departure from equality.
Understanding this basic concept will help parties to have more realistic expectations, and will therefore help them to sort out matters by agreement.
Lastly, there is the divorce itself.
The most important thing here is to try to divorce without blaming the other party for the breakdown of the marriage. Blaming the other party only causes unnecessary ill-feeling, which impacts upon everything else. As discussed above, you will want to try to agree arrangements for children and finances if possible, and such ill-feeling will make it much harder to agree anything. And remember, whatever happens you will still have to deal with the other parent of your children, possibly for the rest of your life.
Under the current divorce law there are ways to avoid, or at least reduce, blame. If you have been separated for two years then you can divorce with the consent of your spouse. And even if you must rely upon your spouse’s ‘unreasonable behaviour’ to get divorced, you can try to ‘agree’ the behaviour allegations before issuing the divorce, in order to avoid unnecessary animosity.
Lastly, you could simply wait until the new no-fault divorce law comes into force, expected to be in the autumn. There will then be no need to play the ‘blame game’.
We try to help our clients achieve a painless divorce, by adopting a non-confrontational approach to family law matters. To find out more, and to get started on a painless divorce with one of our specialist lawyers, click here.
As we prepare to say a perhaps not-so-sad farewell to the difficult year 2020, it is time to look forward to the year to come.
Of course, much of what may happen in the world of family law in 2021 will have to wait to be seen. However, there is one thing that is due to happen that already looks like being the biggest family law story of 2021, if not of the last fifty years.
Next autumn the new system of no-fault divorce is due to come into force.
This represents the culmination of literally decades of work by family lawyers and others, who have been pushing for this much-needed reform.
It is not actually the first time that Parliament has enacted a system of no-fault divorce. It did so way back in 1996. Unfortunately, that was a rather complex piece of legislation, and it was never entirely clear exactly how it would work. In the end, the new system was never brought into force, and the reform was scrapped.
This time the reform is much simpler and, whilst there are certainly some details that remain to be ironed out, there is no reason to fear that it will not come into force, even if the autumn deadline is missed.
Under the new system there will still be the same one ground for divorce: that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. However, the big difference is that it will no longer be necessary to prove irretrievable breakdown by showing (for example) that the other party has committed adultery, or that they have behaved unreasonably.
Instead, one or both of the parties will file with the court a statement that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, and that will be accepted by the court as conclusive proof of irretrievable breakdown.
And thereafter the procedure will be very simple: twenty weeks after the statement is filed the court can make a conditional divorce order, the equivalent to the decree nisi under the current system, and six weeks after that the court can make a final divorce order, the equivalent of the current decree absolute.
This reform has been almost universally welcomed by the family justice community, who see it as an essential part of a modern divorce system.
So why is this reform so important?
Well, there are two main reasons: one specific to the current procedure, and one more general.
As mentioned above, the current divorce procedure requires the party seeking a divorce to blame the other party for the breakdown of the marriage (at least until the parties have been separated for two years), by showing that the other party has committed adultery or behaved unreasonably.
But what if there has been no adultery, and no significant ‘unreasonable behaviour’?
In such circumstances it is not uncommon for the parties to engage in a sort of charade, in which behaviour allegations are exaggerated or even manufactured, simply to get over the irretrievable breakdown hurdle. And the allegations are not disputed, as both parties want a divorce. Needless to say, all of this can bring the system into dispute.
But the more general point is that attributing blame can be very upsetting for the party accused of being responsible for the breakdown of the marriage, making them less willing to engage constructively in sorting out more important issues such as arrangements for children and finances.
There is simply no need to attribute blame for the marriage breakdown. If one or both parties state that the marriage has broken down then it has – that is a simple fact. The law does not have to concern itself with why the breakdown happened, prying into the parties’ private lives.
Removing blame does away with one major cause of ill-feeling between divorcing couples, helping them to concentrate on the future, rather than the past, and making it more likely that they will be able to resolve the important issues amicably.
So let us look forward to a New Year that will hopefully be rather better than the old!
Last week the Department for Work and Pensions published the latest release of annual statistics on separated parents in Great Britain. The statistics indicated that in 2017/18, the latest year for which figures are available, there were approximately 2.4 million separated families in Great Britain, including 3.5 million dependent children.
That is a lot of families, and a lot of children. Now, obviously, for most of those children arrangements are in place for them to live with, or have contact with, both of their parents. The arrangements may be agreed between the parents, or they may be contained in a child arrangements court order.
Of course, none of those arrangements will have envisaged the present situation, where we are in ‘lockdown’, restricted to our own homes, unable to leave save for essential shopping, daily exercise, medical need or attending essential work.
So how will child arrangements work now?
The first thing to say is that the Government has specifically made clear that the lockdown does not apply to the movement of children under 18 between their parents’ homes. Moving a child from one parent to another in accordance with child arrangements (whether agreed or in a court order) does not breach the lockdown.
But of course it is not necessarily as simple as that. We all have to take into account considerations relating not just to the health and welfare of our own families, but in relation to public health generally. Maybe the arrangements that were made before the Coronavirus crisis are not currently appropriate –what happens then?
Well, the President of the Family Division Sir Andrew McFarlane has issued guidance for separated parents during the crisis. The guidance specifically relates to compliance with Family Court child arrangements orders, but most of it applies equally well to those parents who have agreed arrangements for their children.
The guidance beings by saying that parental responsibility, i.e. the responsibility to make decisions relating to a child, rests with the child’s parents and not with the court. This is important: parents do not need to go to the court every time a decision needs to be made regarding their child, even where a child arrangements order is in force.
The guidance goes on to say that the decision whether a child is to move between parental homes is for the child’s parents to make after a sensible assessment of the circumstances, including the child’s present health, the risk of infection and the presence of any recognised vulnerable individuals in one household or the other. In other words, if you are concerned, the first thing you should do is try to discuss the matter with the other parent. If the parents can agree matters, then each parent should record the agreement in a note, email or text message sent to the other parent.
But sometimes of course parents can’t agree. Obviously, no separated parents is going to want to stop seeing their child, or have their contact with their child restricted. The guidance make clear that where parents do not agree to vary the arrangements set out in a child arrangements order, but one parent is sufficiently concerned that complying with the arrangements would be against current public health advice, then that parent may vary the arrangement to one that they consider to be safe. However, it should be borne in mind that if the matter later goes back before the Family Court then the court will consider whether that parent acted reasonably.
And where Coronavirus restrictions cause the letter of a court order to be varied, the guidance says that the courts will expect alternative arrangements to be made to establish and maintain regular contact between the child and the other parent within the Government’s lockdown rules, for example remotely – by FaceTime, WhatsApp FaceTime, Skype, Zoom or other video connection or, if that is not possible, by telephone.
The guidance concludes with this:
“The key message should be that, where Coronavirus restrictions cause the letter of a court order to be varied, the spirit of the order should nevertheless be delivered by making safe alternative arrangements for the child.”
Of course, the above just sets out some basic general principles. If you would like more detailed advice in relation to your particular situation, we can help. We have a free online system providing information on a range of family matters, which you can find here.
We are very proud to have been named as Boutique Law Firm of 2020 (11+ Employees) at the prestigious Modern Law Awards in Manchester on 6 February 2020.
The Eclipse Proclaim Modern Law Awards were launched to celebrate and identify sparkling talent and success in entrepreneurship, market development, business management and best practice in the modern legal services arena.
The Judges included:
The category in which we were recognised was Boutique Law Firm of the Year (11+ Employees)
These are prestigious awards and there were a lot of entries. We are honoured to have been singled out for recognition.
Ian Walker was highly commended at the Law Society Excellence Awards last Autumn, but this award is special to us because it recognises the very hard work of all of our team.
All of our team have played a big role in our success. What we have achieved together in the last 7 years has been incredible – a real team effort.
The criteria against which we were judged were:
These have included:
Unfortunately we couldn’t take the whole team to Manchester. On the night we were represented by Ian Walker.
We would like to say a big thank you to Modern Law and to the Judges and everyone on the night for making us so welcome.
We also wish to congratulate the other winners and say a big thank you to all who were shortlisted and to all who entered.
It was a fantastic night!
Hot on the heels of our founder Ian Walker being Highly Commended in the Law Society Excellence Awards 2019 in the category of Practice Manager of the Year, we have now been shortlisted in the category of BOUTIQUE LAW FIRM OF THE YEAR (11+ Employees) in the prestigious Modern Law Awards.
These national awards are organised by the Modern Law Magazine. This is essentially a periodical for legal professionals.
This is how Modern Law Magazine describes itself:
Modern Law Magazine has established itself as one of the leading B2B publications in the legal industry. As a number of distinct trends start to emerge out of the legal landscape, rather than being apprehensive of the scale of the change, now is the time to embrace the opportunities it will bring. Modern Law is focused on covering those trends and helping your law firm and/or organisation become more efficient, productive and sustainable in an increasingly competitive market.
As the needs and expectations of customers and clients are changing so are the expectations of our readers. We will continue to bring you high-profile interviews as well as views from the Top 100, regional outlooks and start-up diaries. Our expert panel of editorial board members will lead the discussion and provide our readers with exclusive insight into the ‘business of law’. In every issue you can expect to read about new technologies, AI, finance and funding, marketing for your law firm, best business practice and lots more. We are all about putting the modern into the modern law firm.
This is what Modern Law tell us about the awards:
Now in their seventh year, the Eclipse Proclaim Modern Law Awards were launched to celebrate and identify sparkling talent and success in entrepreneurship, market development, business management and best practice in the modern legal services arena. These exclusive awards reflect the ever-increasing reorganisation, new legal entities and business dynamism of legal service providers since the Legal Services Act came into force.
The Modern Law Awards offer a unique and timely opportunity to celebrate not only innovative business leaders, but those changing the face of business strategy and development, regulation management and client care throughout the organisation – for both short and long-term gain. Champions in ABSs, new legal entrants and pre-existing law firms that have successfully led engaging, relevant and new strategies for gold-plated services and business growth will be praised in the third of these national awards. The Modern Law Awards are the perfect opportunity for the sector to showcase and set the benchmarks for best practice in the ever diverse, challenging and exciting landscape for the business of law.
This year the Judges include:
In other words this is a weighty and knowledgeable panel of Judges.
This in turn means that these are prestigious national awards.
We have been nominated in the category of Boutique Law Firm of the Year (11+ employees), but what does this mean?
Here are the criteria for the category:
The awards ceremony is on Thursday 6th February 2020 in Manchester
Ian Walker founded our practice in 2013. Since then we have built a fantastically experienced team and have expanded the area we serve across Devon and Somerset.
We have had 50% growth year on year for the last 5 years. We have achieved lots of good outcomes for clients and their children.
We have made good use of the current technology and early adopters of innovative software.
Our growth has been a team effort. It is always nice to have peer recognition. This recognition allows us to step back and remember how far we have come and the effort and contribution that everyone has made toward this.
It is particularly nice to receive this recognition as we move toward the Christmas holiday and a welcome rest.
Thank you to everyone and we are looking forward to 2020…
We are delighted to post that our founder Ian Walker has been highly commended in the Law Society’s Excellence Awards – the highest accolade for law firms in England and Wales.
The event in Central London – which attracted more than 1000 guests – is the most prestigious awards ceremony for solicitors in England and Wales. Professionals and their firms are recognised across a range of categories covering all areas of legal practice and business.
These are the most prestigious legal awards nationally.
Ian Walker received a commendation in the Practice Manager of the Year category.
The Law Society Practice Manager of the Year category celebrates individuals who have introduced innovative change management initiatives which resulted in significant performance improvements.
The awards ceremony was hosted by BBC Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark announced that:
“Ian Walker has founded and built a thriving firm in a relatively short period of time. His innovative “multiple client point” service impressed the judges”
Law Society of England and Wales president Simon Davis said:
“In such uncertain times, we must never forget the immense contribution that solicitors make to society. Our work is indispensable to upholding the rule of law.
“At the Law Society Excellence Awards, we come together to celebrate outstanding success in the sector.
“There are more than 180,000 solicitors in England & Wales: to be highly-commended is to be recognised as among the best of the best.”
Since Ian founded our practice in 2013 it has grown from being simply Ian and a computer to a team of 8 qualified lawyers and a support team of 7. We are now one of the largest and most experienced teams of family lawyers in the South West.
Ian Walker says;
Whilst my commendation was in an individual category, I am viewing this as recognition of our fantastic team.
There is only so much a person can achieve by themselves. So much more can be achieved through teamwork.
I have a brilliant set of colleagues. All are a pleasure to work with and it extremely rewarding to see the way they achieve the best results for our clients and in the right way.
Unfortunately we couldn’t all make the trip to the awards ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London. Ian was accompanied by team members; Leanne Cornock-Stark, Briony Phillips, Nicole Phare and Sandy Powell. (All in main picture together with Ian and Law Society President Simon Davis)
Because it was half term, Ian’s wife wasn’t able to attend, but Ian’s family were represented by Ian’s oldest daughter Naomi, who works in London, but has previously assisted in the office during university holidays.
In the last 6 1/2 years we have built a practice based on:
The area we cover now includes: Exeter, Honiton, Torquay, Taunton, Yeovil and Weston-Super-Mare.
This is the first major awards we have entered (being too busy building the practice). This is the most prestigious Legal Awards, and being highly commended is fantastic recognition of what we have achieved so far.
Because we are getting on with what we do, it is easy to forget or to minimise what we have achieved. The Law Society Excellence Awards have allowed us to take a step back and to take stock or and take pride in what we have done so far. It has very much been a team effort.
We have exciting plans for the next five years, so this kind of marks the end of our beginning.
It is important that we don’t rest on our laurels or stand still. We know that we can do so much more.
We may find the time to enter some other awards, but our clients will always be our priority.
Watch this space to see what we do next….
P.S. If you are a family lawyer or mediator and are interested in becoming part of our journey, please email: [email protected]
We received a very pleasant surprise this week when we were notified that our founder Ian Walker had been shortlisted in the category of Practice Manager of the Year
Managing Partner of the year in the prestigious Law Society Excellence Awards.
The Law Society Excellence Awards are designed to celebrate the hard work and inspirational achievements of solicitors, legal teams and law firms of all sizes across England and Wales.
The Awards have been run for for the past 12 years.
These are national awards – organised by the Law Society (of England and Wales).
Essentially the aim is to promote the legal profession. Lawyers are often portrayed negatively in the media, but in reality they play a very important role in society, in assisting clients to resolve personal/family problems (e.g. family law), sort out their personal affairs (moving house, making and administering wills et cetera (private client law), helping businesses interact with each other, resolving personal injury disputes and other forms of litigation, protecting human rights, ensuring that those accused of crimes have a fair trial, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The specification for the Practice Manager of the Year award is as follows:
Law firms often operate in a highly competitive and volatile business environment, which creates risks but also huge opportunities to thrive and develop. We are looking for individuals who help their firm to:
Law Society president Simon Davis said:
“There are more than 140,000 solicitors in England and Wales – to be shortlisted for an Excellence Award is to be recognised as among the very best of the profession.
“The firms and solicitors shortlisted should be commended for going above and beyond to support their clients, often navigating tricky and sometimes contentious areas of the law.
“With the justice system so under strain, we should take this opportunity to celebrate the incredible work solicitors do day-in and day-out – and to recognise the immense contribution they make to our society.”
Winners are announced at the Law Society’s Excellence Awards ceremony in London on 23 October 2019.
As a practice, we have now been in existence for 6 1/2 years. For the first two years the practice was simply Ian a computer.
We have since grown into a practice that consists of eight solicitors and legal executives (nine if we include Briony who is a trainee legal executive) and a total headcount of 16. The practice has more than doubled in size in the last 18 months.
In the last 18 months we have also:
There are also other improvements that we have adopted which we do not have the space to deal with here.
Whilst the shortlisting of Ian Walker in the Law Society Excellence Awards category of Practice Manager of the Year is an individual category, we are of the view (quite rightly), that this is a nomination for our whole team.
Continuous improvement/development and positive change requires working together as a team and everyone sharing in the vision of achieving continuous improvement. No one has all the ideas. A good team will always outperform a group of individuals.
Our shortlisting is therefore in our mind a shortlisting for us all.
If you scroll through LinkedIn, there seem to be endless awards and endless awards for similar things.
These are marketing opportunities. Many firms will employ PR consultants to make sure that they are entered into every award competition and directory going.
As a practice, our priority is, and will always be to prioritise meeting the needs of our clients. As a consequence we are busy because we are working hard to meet their demands and the demands for our services.
This is only the second time we have entered an awards in the existence of our practice. We simply haven’t had the time or the inclination to enter the multitude of other awards.
We were therefore very surprised and flattered when we receive the shortlisting. We didn’t employ anyone to nominate us. Obviously not every practice/practice manager for a law firm in England and Wales will have entered, but because these are national awards, we anticipate that the number of entries will have been much higher than more localised awards.
In our view, within the legal profession, these are the most prestigious awards. It is very nice to have been shortlisted (Ian is one of four on the shortlist), if by chance we did win, that would be very nice, but ultimately this changes nothing about how we want to run our practice and our never-ending striving for improvement.
It’s very nice to have some recognition for all our hard work – but the best recognition is always unhappy clients, for whom we have achieved good outcomes!
There is a lot to think about when couples get divorced. Who will start off the paperwork? What will happen to your home? Where will the children live? How will the matrimonial finances be divided? Often, in addition to these “larger” questions, couples will also need to consider what happens to their family pet(s) i.e. who gets to keep the cat?
Under the law of England and Wales, pets are seen as “property”, much like other household items or amenities such as your car or your sofa. Unlike with children, there is no such thing as “custody” or “residence” of a pet, and so when deciding on who will get to keep Mr Fluffy, the court will often look at the following factors:
If agreement cannot be reached between them, couples can end up spending thousands of pounds in legal fees, fighting over their beloved pets.
One only has to look at more “high profile” cases, such as that of Ant McPartlin and his wife Lisa Armstrong, who are allegedly battling over who keeps Hurley, their chocolate Labrador, to see how easily costs can mount.
Therefore, if you are in any doubt about the future care of your pets or wish to avoid expensive arguments in the future, it may be worth considering getting a pre-nuptial agreement drawn up if you intend to marry, or a post-nuptial agreement if you are already married.
If you are not married and are in a relationship, then the laws surrounding divorce and financial settlement will not apply. There is no such thing as a “common law marriage” and so couples fighting over pets will usually have to resort to making an application in the civil courts.
As with married couples, if you wish to avoid future disputes then you should consider having a cohabitation agreement drafted up, which will deal with who owns what at the time the agreement is drafted, what financial arrangements you wish to make whilst you are living together and what will happen to your finances and assets on the event the relationship breaks down.
Where the agreement is properly drafted, the terms are reasonable and each party has received independent legal advice, a court is more likely to uphold the terms of the agreement in the event of a dispute.
If you require any assistance or further information in relation to a matrimonial dispute, or the drafting of pre-nuptial, post-nuptial or cohabitation agreement then please do not hesitate to get in touch with a member of our team, who will be happy to help you.
