Here's the latest selection of search queries that have recently found their way to Family Lore, with my replies. As usual, my Disclaimer (see the sidebar) applies to what follows.

financial divorce consent order breach

The order may already have provisions covering this. If not, what to do depends upon the nature of the order that is breached. If it is an order for the payment of a lump sum of money, then it can be enforced in the same way as any other debt (warrant of execution, garnishee order, charging order etc.). If it is for payment of maintenance, the usual procedure is attachment of earnings. If it is for a transfer of property then you can, if necessary, obtain an order that the judge sign whatever documentation is required to give effect to the transfer.

do the english want sharia law?

I don’t think so, and I certainly hope not.

the beatles members with beards

Didn't they all have beards at one time or another?

recent cases beneficial interest after cohabitation after appeal 2008

Err… Fowler v Barron, for one.

adultery co-respondent rights uk

The Co-Respondent can deny the alleged adultery, and can also be heard on the question of costs.

family law since april in uk

Um, it is April. Which April do you mean?

family lawyer seeks work in ireland

There's a joke here...

english law relating to gifts

Not sure if this relates to family law, but disputes over gifts to the parties do often crop up, especially gifts from the parents of one party. That party or the giver of the gift then argues that it was a gift to them only or, in the case of monetary gifts, that it was actually a loan. The answer depends upon the nature of the ‘gift’ and the circumstances, but in the absence of an agreement to the contrary gifts are usually to both parties, and are not loans unless there is evidence of repayment.

claiming half of my ex husbands pension

Yes, you can, although it is arguable that you are only entitled to half of that proportion of the pension that was accumulated during the marriage. There are other factors involved, and you should seek legal advice.

examples of a character reference for a divorce

Why would you need one?

entitlements if my husbands leaves

All I can say here is that the starting-point is equal division of assets. If you want more than that, get some advice.

property price dispute in a consent order

Most orders provide a mechanism for resolving property price disputes, and if they do not then the price will be determined by the court.

money that's what i want tabs

Are you telling this to Tabs, or do you want tabs as well as money? If the latter, seek drug counselling.

family law not eligible for legal aid cant afford

You and many others. Most firms offer advice, for a fixed fee, and there are schemes for fee funding, such as this one.

new law relating to partners and houses

It’s been shelved for now – see this post.

number of school dropouts reported in the british army

What’s this got to do with me?


Update: I've since had a great search term, which I had to add to this post:

legal advise psyco ex wife

My advice: 1. Learn to spell. 2. Get a bodyguard. 3. Hire a good lawyer, and be prepared to give them a bit more detail. 4. In future, be more discerning in your choice of women.

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More than a year ago I signed the 'scrap carter' epetition. Today 10 Downing Street issued the following reply:

"The Government believes that legal aid is a fundamental underpinning of the justice system, enabling access to justice for those who cannot afford to pay for legal advice and representation. This is reflected in the fact that the legal aid system in England and Wales is the best funded in the world. We spend £38 per head of population compared to between £3 and £4 in France and Germany. Even countries with a legal system more like ours spend less; for example, both New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland spend around £8 per head.

The Government was concerned that earlier payment structures for legal aid work are not representing best value either for users of legal aid services or for taxpayers. Moreover, the rise in spending on criminal legal aid has, in the past, prevented us focusing more legal aid resources on people with social welfare or family problems. We have therefore introduced standard fees for a wide range of legal help and representation as part of our duty to provide taxpayers with value for money.

No money is being taken out of civil and family legal aid. The current reforms are about getting best value for money from the legal aid system so that the Government can help as many people as possible within the resources available - so they will result in more, and not fewer, people being able to get help."

All of which sounds wonderful, until you realise that none of the solicitors in your area provide a legal aid service, because it is no longer economic for them to do the work.

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I did another session at the Kent Law Clinic last night. For those who have not read my previous posts about it, the Clinic is run by the Kent Law School at the University of Kent, with the objectives of providing a service for local people who need legal advice and representation but cannot afford to pay for it, and enhancing the education of students in the School. I'm sure the Clinic fulfils these objectives, but should such a service really be necessary in a country with a legal aid system? Surely, such a system should ensure that all people have access to justice? Patently, it does not, and the Government therefore relies upon people providing their services for free, to prop up a system that is failing in its objectives.

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I hear that the Legal Services Commission, in a drive to attract lawyers back to legal aid work, is to release an information film about the rewards of being a legal aid lawyer. It is to be called "Quantum of Solace".

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Thankfully, I've not been tagged by the latest blawg meme-virus, unlike both authors at reductio ad absurdum and Nearly Legal. Nevertheless, on this first day of the New Year I would still like to set out some things that I hope will happen in the area of family law:

1. Reform of the divorce law, to bring in a proper no fault divorce system. My thoughts on this were set out in this post.

2. Reform of the system for resolving private law children disputes regarding residence and contact, with a starting-point of equality between the parents. Under such a system there would be a rebuttable presumption that children should share their time equally with both parents.

3. That the child support system will be reformed so that it is fair and it actually works. (I realise that this is pretty unlikely.)

4. That clear statutory guidance is provided to determine financial/property settlements on divorce, possibly including a formula. This would provide far more certainty, and therefore dramatically increase the number of cases that are settled without having to go to court.

5. That the new rules on cohabitee property rights (see this post) are fair, reasonable, clear and workable.

6. (Another forlorn hope.) That the legal aid system will be reformed so that everyone will have equal access to the law, and legal aid lawyers will all earn a decent living.

One can only hope...

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A recent case in America could illustrate what the future holds for low-income litigants in this country, if the exodus of legal aid lawyers continues. Mother of three Brenda King could not afford representation in a custody dispute. She couldn't find pro bono help and therefore had to represent herself. Unsurprisingly, she lost the case, and to rub salt into the wound she was ordered to pay $7,500 costs. She subsequently appealed to the state Supreme Court for a new trial, this time with a divorce lawyer at public expense. Her appeal was refused.

There are already legal aid 'deserts' in this country. They are growing bigger, and the Government is deaf to calls for more money to stop the exodus. How long before Mrs King's experience becomes typical over here? Interestingly, one of the Justices that ruled against her suggested that the Legislature may want to extend the constitutional right to an attorney to divorce cases when a party can't afford to hire a lawyer, as a matter of "wise public policy".

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At its annual conference last month the Association of Lawyers for Children conducted a survey of delegates designed to ascertain the impact of the Government's current legal aid reforms on those members of the Association attending the Conference. The results make damning reading. Of the 101 responses, a third said that they were reducing publicly funded work, and 40% of firms had reduced or intended to reduce reliance on publicly funded work. Of the 17 people who had left or were leaving practice, 62% cited legal aid changes as their reason for leaving.

I found this story via Family Law NewsWatch. What I liked about their article was the accompanying picture, which I reproduce here (I hope they don't mind). Most apt.

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Readers may already be aware of the Mubarik/Mubarak case, in which the two children of a multimillionaire jeweller have been given legal aid of £30,750 to protect their interests under a family trust, as their mother is attempting to enforce a divorce award against their father, whose wealth is tied up in the trust. I have just read this report about the case in the Guardian yesterday.

That two children who were born with diamond encrusted spoons in their mouths should be granted legal aid is absurd enough (and a kick in the teeth for those thousands of deserving individuals who are refused legal aid every year), but to add insult to the taxpayer's injury the parents have managed to avoid paying any tax at all, despite being resident here for tax purposes and liable to English taxation, a situation which Mr Justice Holman describes as "exquisitely ironical". No doubt the media will have a field day with this one, and quite right too. If this sort of nonsensical anomaly is not eradicated from the legal aid system, then that system deserves all the ridicule it gets.

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I have often complained (most recently only yesterday - I'm sure I'm not alone) about the irony that on the one hand the Government tells us (in Section 1 of the Children Act) that "in any proceedings in which any question with respect to the upbringing of a child arises, the court shall have regard to the general principle that any delay in determining the question is likely to prejudice the welfare of the child", and on the other hand, the Government fails to give sufficient resources to the courts or CAFCASS, with the result that children proceedings are subjected to huge delays. The subject of Government funding has been taken up by Alistair MacDonald, Co-Chair of the Association of Lawyers for Children, in his Opening Address to the Annual Conference of the Association:

...what can rightly be said about the reforms to family legal aid proposed by the Government and the wider chronic under-resourcing of the family justice system, what can rightly be said to be common ground amongst many eminent individuals and organisations whose opinions deservedly command respect, is that those reforms constitute an unprecedented threat to access to justice for vulnerable children and families in this jurisdiction.

On the legal aid reforms he said:

We have sought to make clear to the Ministry of Justice that the new Public Law Outline and the revised Children Act Guidance are designed to be implemented and operated by specialist legal practitioners; that those twin reforms can only be effective in reducing delay and improving outcomes for children if a sufficient and sustainable supplier base of such specialist legal practitioners is maintained. We have repeatedly highlighted that the Constitutional Affairs Committee has recognised, having heard evidence from all interested stakeholders from the senior judiciary to children's charities, that the proposed reforms to legal aid constitute a "breathtaking risk."

So, is Section 1 of the Children Act (which also of course states that "the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration") effectively no more than hot air, just another example of government spin? Is it really the case that the Government is more interested in hard economics than the welfare of children? The Government will, of course, continue to demand more efficiency, but MacDonald responds that "there is a level of chronic under-investment below which even the most efficient use of existing assets cannot mitigate the impact of that chronic under-investment". When that level is reached, the system will break down - a consequence MacDonald fears will surely happen if the Government continues on its present path.

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David Burrows is not a name I had expected to come across whilst reading the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal reports in the Gazette, but the SDT has ordered him to pay a fine of £1,000 for retaining in office account monies sent to him by the Legal Services Commission for payment of disbursements and costs, contrary to rule 22(1) of the Solicitors Accounts Rules 1998. Burrows admitted the facts but, in typical Burrows fashion, challenged the vires of the rules, an argument that unsurprisingly was not accepted by the SDT. Was this a genuine mistake by Burrows, or did he deliberately breach the rules in order to raise the ultra vires argument?

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In her interview on GMTV Heather Mills stated that she is "£1.5 million in debt in lawyers' fees". Now, I don't know her lawyers' hourly charging rates or how many hours they have spent on the matter, but a legal aid lawyer in London receives (I believe) £66 per hour for County Court work. On this basis a legal aid lawyer would have to work 22,727 hours to earn £1.5 million. If a reasonable number of annual billable hours for a divorce lawyer is 1200, it would therefore take a legal aid lawyer nearly 19 years to earn such a sum. Heather Mills instructed her lawyers about 18 months ago. Does this mean they are worth more than 12 times as much as a legal aid lawyer, some £800 per hour?

Now, I know there are a number of flaws to the above argument, but I think the basic point is still valid. The level of skill, knowledge and general competence required by a 'big-money case' lawyer is surely not twelve times that of a legal aid divorce lawyer, or anything like it. I am not for one moment saying that they should be paid at legal aid rates, or indeed that legal aid lawyers should be paid £800 per hour, but I think that high profile cases like the McCartney/Mills divorce add to the public perception of all divorce lawyers being 'fat cats', when the reality for most is quite different. The answer, of course, is that legal aid lawyers are worth considerably more than £66 per hour. As for Ms Mills' lawyers, I will leave it to the reader to decide whether they are worth their fees.

[Non-lawyer readers may have done the maths and be shocked to have calculated that, on the basis of the above figures, legal aid lawyers earn £79,000 per annum (assuming they do no private work). However, this does not take account of the lawyer's substantial overheads such as insurance, rent, equipment, wages for non fee earning staff etc. The amount that a legal aid lawyer actually receives will be a fraction of his/her fee income.]

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[WARNING: Not for readers of a nervous disposition]

Once upon a time there were Legal Aid Contracts.

THE END

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This article in The Independent today reports more government anti-lawyer propaganda, suggesting that legal aid divorce lawyers purposely keep quiet about mediation, as they will get paid more if the matter goes to court. No doubt the public will swallow it as usual, although they will be the first to complain when they can't find a legal aid solicitor in their area.

The article barely mentions the fact that before any legal aid certificate is granted the suitability of the matter for mediation has to be considered by a mediation agency (not the lawyers), and no mention is given to the fact that mediation is purely voluntary and most people simply do not want it. It is true that public money could probably be saved if more cases went to mediation, and I'm sure there are some lawyers who 'keep quiet', but to blame lawyers solely for the extra expense is nonsense.

Having seen the light some years ago, I don't do legal aid work, but I do suggest mediation to my clients, where appropriate. The vast majority of them do not want to go to mediation, and many of those that do fail to reach a settlement, some reporting unfavourably about the whole process. So in any event, mediation is not the panacea many would have you believe.

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I see the Legal Services Commission has published the list of firms who have been awarded legal aid training contracts for 2007. There are some 71 firms on the list, but the LSC says that this year the scheme "will award a further 100 grants nationally". The scheme offers "a package of over £30,000 per grant", which by my calculation comes to over £3 million pounds.

This makes me laugh. For years the LSC and its predecessors have effectively cut back on legal aid rates of pay, with the inevitable result that fewer and fewer people want to do the work, and now they are spending large sums of money to entice (bribe?) people into legal aid work! Even if the scheme is entirely successful and results in 100 new legal aid lawyers a year, this is hardly going to offset the stampede of lawyers giving up legal aid.

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Getting back to things legal, a woman telephoned my firm's office this morning saying that she needed to instruct a solicitor urgently, but that she required legal aid. My firm does not offer a legal aid service anymore, but she had rung several firms that do, only to be offered an appointment in two months' time. This is a scenario that must be re-enacted regularly across the country, and will only become more frequent as more firms decide it is uneconomic to work for legal aid rates of pay. I'm sure the media will blame 'fat-cat' lawyers for refusing to do legal aid work, but the reality of course for many legal aid firms is a stark choice between giving up or going under.

What price justice? A price that the government clearly doesn't feel it is worth paying.

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On a more serious note, the Gazette also reports the disappointing but not surprising news that 94% of legal aid firms have signed the new civil contract. The Legal Services Commission will no doubt see this as a victory, even if they don't say so, but I'm not so sure. Most legal aid firms could not possibly have restructured their businesses to do without legal aid work in the short time available. My view is that many of those firms that signed will now be starting such a restructuring process, with a view to giving up legal aid work as soon as it is viable to do so. Will the LSC still think this is a victory in a couple of years time?

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I've not previously posted someone else's comment on this blog, but this comment by Elle on my last post says it all about the legal aid debate:

I know the author of said letter couldn't possibly be talking about me. I'm still shopping at Primark and wearing the same shoes I was 2 years ago. Unfortunately the public won't realise just exactly what they're losing until it's gone. When they find it impossible to find a Legal Aid lawyer to save their lives they'll change their tune. Of course then it's too late.

My firm is signing the Unified Contract but frankly I think we're going to all wind up selling the Big Issue before long. :(

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Referring to the legal aid protest by lawyers in London on Monday and the outrageous response by a DCA 'spokeswoman' (interestingly not named) that the action was "unprofessional and irresponsible", the Editorial in this week's Gazette speculates "that the government must be slightly worried that the general public will be swayed from its normally anti-lawyer sentiments". Unfortunately, I fear that such speculation is somewhat premature, as I've just read this letter in the Guardian's letter column for the day after the protest:

Our legal aid system is the most generous in the world. The best-paid legal aid lawyers make around £1m. How many nurses, teachers or doctors earn that?

Missing the point, of course, but it seems that we still have a long way to go before we get the general public on our side.

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Further to my last post, and perhaps more importantly, Keith Vaz's Early Day Motion about legal aid reform has now attracted the signatures of 131 MPs. As part of it's 'What Price Justice?' campaign, the Law Society urges solicitors to encourage their MP to add their signature to support the motion, which reads:

That this House, while accepting that the legal aid system is in need of reform, is concerned that the Government's planned implementation of Lord Carter's proposals could force several hundred law firms out of business leaving vulnerable clients without access to effective representation; is concerned that the proposals identified in the Carter Review could further endanger the supplier base; notes that the changes to the proposals announced by the Government on 28th November 2006, while welcome, do not go far enough; welcomes the Law Society's `What Price Justice' campaign to boost awareness of the potential risk to the most vulnerable people in society and notes that it is supported by MIND, the NSPCC, Shelter, the Refugee Council, the Child Poverty Action Group and others; and calls upon the Government to guarantee a legal aid system ensuring quality representation and fair access to justice for all.

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Staffordshire solicitor Cathie Halliday has created the following e-petition: "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Scrap Lord Carters Legal Aid Reforms". She explains:

If the reforms are brought into action. It is widely predicted that many legal aid law firms will stop doing legal aid work. This will leave the most vulnerable in society at very real risk, including women and children subject to abuse. In some areas there will be no access for justice. In many areas it will be greatly reduced. It is important that this does not happen. Today, I helped a woman and her four children escape a violent husband. Don't make me and many others give up this valuable work!

Despite having no vested interest (I no longer do legal aid work), I have signed the petition, and I recommend to all readers of this blog that they do likewise. This is not about "fat cat" lawyers trying to protect their interests, it is about protecting the legal rights of, as Cathie says, the most vulnerable in society.

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