The Family Law Blog

It is well established that the breakdown of a marriage/civil partnership is one of the most stressful life events, second only to bereavement. If you are about to or have recently separated from your partner then you will probably find that well meaning friends and family are eager to offer advice as to what happened to them or to a friend of theirs and what sort of financial settlement they achieved. The law dealing with financial issues is however very broad on the basis that everyone’s financial circumstances are different.

There are huge changes in legal funding available for family cases coming into force in April this year. Legal funding (save in certain narrowly defined exceptional circumstances) will no longer be available for divorce, financial remedy and private children matters.

Constantly I hear my fellow family lawyers worried about their future and their family practices.  Many practices rely on legal aid and as we all know the government plan to remove legal aid funding for many areas of family law from May next year.