Family

The future of litigation funding in divorce cases – which new figures from law firms show mainly benefits women – is in the balance as the Court of Appeal hears a crucial appeal.

A law firm has had to take civil action against the father on the opposite side of a child contact dispute because of the abuse he has directed at it and the solicitor running the case.

An unbundled family law service aimed at people who cannot afford to instruct a solicitor has “reached a new market” and delivered very positive results, researchers have found.

Barristers working on private family law cases are facing “unrealistic” expectations to broker agreements between warring parents, two lawyer academics have argued.

A law firm that narrowed the scope of its retainer after a divorcing woman negotiated her own financial settlement was nonetheless negligent in failing to give her advice on the deal.

It is not the role of courts to act as “insurers of solicitors” who “overshoot, let alone dramatically overshoot” legal services payment orders, a Family Court judge has said.

Completion of the court modernisation programme has been pushed back again, this time to March 2024, it has emerged – in a blog, rather than a Ministry of Justice annoucement.

Plans to make mediation mandatory before a separating couple can go to court is likely to reduce demand for legal services providers, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday.

A family court judge has described a case where the two parties racked up costs of £5.5m as “one of the most shameless pieces of litigation” he has ever seen.

A solicitor who failed to pass on to a client the £132,000 due to her from her divorce settlement – money the profession has now had to stump up – has been struck off.