Last week, I found myself unexpectedly recording an episode of BBC Newscast with Sanchia Berg and Harriet Harman MP. The prompt for the episode was a reform to legislation proposed by Harriet Harman, supported by the Lord Chancellor and currently under consideration in Parliament. The amendment came about as a result of coverage of a family court case by Sanchia Berg last year. That coverage had only been made possible by the transparency reforms that were being piloted in family courts, which made it easier for reporters to report private hearings. Ostensibly, I was on the show to discuss tho ..read more

Alright you slackers, it’s time for some law. Mainly because I have had a bunch of browser windows open with ‘new’ judgments open, ready for me to write them up and I can’t tick them off my to do list until I do. I could just close the browser windows but that would be cheating. So, here is judgment number 1. In Re T (Adoption Hearing: Involvement of Applicants) [2024] EWCA Civ 189 the Court of Appeal corrected an erroneous practice in Cornwall relating to adoption hearings. The appeal judges thought (and I agree – for what that’s worth) that this was probably not confined to Cornwall, much as ..read more

I’ve been cautious about posting anything recently. My head is awl of a muddle and I may say something I will later regret. But I’ve got itchy fingers and am sitting quietly at home with nobody to distract me, so… I should be at work this week. In fact I should be in the middle of week one of three. I am (now) glad that I’m not, but this time last week I was frankly very, very cross. Not cross at anyone in particular, except possibly myself. But really hacked off at the job and the nonsense it involves. I wasn’t feeling very rational about it last week, so resisted the urge to do a bit of keyb ..read more

Trigger warning: death.   My mum died last week. Her name was Suzanne (never Susan). I realised as I studied her face after it happened that I have never seen a dead body before. Her top lip was taut over her teeth. She looked weirdly waxen. Her forehead was cool on my lips as I kissed her goodbye. Right now I am learning a lot about the stuff that needs to be sorted when someone dies. There is a lot of it. And I am learning a lot too about the enormity of losing a parent. I can’t quite make sense of the fact that it is both something that almost everyone goes through at my stage of life ..read more

The other day I put a polite but hopefully firm OOO on my emails, explaining that I am not taking on new work and will deal only with emails relating to existing commitments. This morning I seriously contemplated rewording it to simply read: “For the love of god, STOP. EMAILING. ME!” I flirted with the idea of adding some swears as a parting flourish (I love a good swear, it’s therapeutic). Of course, I haven’t done that. It’s nobody else’s fault that I need to draw a line. And they aren’t psychic. Also, I am a professional. But I have reached a stage where for the sake of my sanity and those ..read more

Hot on the heels of the second edition of Transparency in the Family Courts, released last week, I received these beauties in the post today. The Public Law Dictionary is a new addition to this family of dictionaries, and I am one of the authors. Other titles include Private Law, TLATA and Inheritance Act, and Financial Remedies. It feels good to have both projects off my to do list, all finished and on my desk in glossy covered hard copy. You can buy a copy of the Dictionaries via Class Legal here. They come in print or ebook format (including pdf if you prefer that), and the digital version ..read more

I’m please to say that the Second Edition of our book Transparency in the Family Court – Publicity and Privacy in Practice is now available for pre-order from Bloomsbury Professional Press for £85. This time around it comes in a fetching shade of pond green. As you may imagine, there has been quite a lot to update since 2018, including the Transparency Review and its sequelae and various case law developments. It’s a fast moving field at the moment (good news) but Julie, Paul and I have made it as up to date as we could at the cut off date for going to print! The only things it doesn’t capture ..read more

I’ve been blessed with some lovely cooperative and charming opponents recently. And few who have been grouchy, rude and irrational. I’m a firm believer that being that person doesn’t pay off: it isn’t an effective strategy that assists clients. It signals a loss of objectivity or a lack of confidence, it shuts down the opportunities to reach compromise, it provokes retaliatory responses and escalation and it irritates judges. I don’t pretend I am the perfect opponent. We can all have our off days. But I try not to be that person. And over 20 years of testing, I’m confident that this approach i ..read more

The light over the front door flickers at The Beacon. There is a bit of damp creeping up the plaster and into the wiring. My dad would have fixed it, but he hasn’t been there for a year. There is a ‘sold’ sign at the top of the drive and my heart is breaking. The contract for sale sat on my kitchen table and watched me, taunting me to sign it for days until I gave in. Signing away our family home of 49 years, my memory bank, the place which connects us and where so many important things happened (so many small things, big things, small-big-important things), the walls where I was loved and com ..read more

Civil Lit Tweet’s Gordon Exall highlighted a cringeworthy judgment today that really demonstrates the dangers of AI in a legal context. More importantly it demonstrates the particular dangers for people who are not egally trained, and don’t know what they are looking for or how to verify results or spot hallucinations and bad points. In this case a litigant in person who was representing herself at a tax tribunal appeal quoted nine AI-generated Tribunal decisions on ‘reasonable excuse’. They looked plausible, but when the lawyers smelled a rat, it was discovered that none of them actually exis ..read more