New Family Law Commissioner

Elizabeth Cooke, Professor of Law at Reading University, has been appointed as the Law Commissioner responsible for family, property & trusts according to the Ministry of Justice .

Cafcass: a serious and significant deficit

The first inspection by Ofsted of CAFCASS in the East Midlands makes pretty bleak reading according to the Times with many serious failures in its core role of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people & families. The full report can be downloaded from the Ofsted site

It's all academic?

The Institute for Advanced Legal Studies is hosting a number of free lectures on topics of interest to family lawyers.

LAURA HOYANO (Faculty of Law, University of Oxford; Fellow in Law, Wadham College) will speak on “Litigating Child Abuse across Boundaries: two courts and two standards of justice?” on Tuesday 5 February 2008 at 6pm.

ANNE BARLOW (School of Law, University of Exeter) will speak on “Cohabitation and Marriage: what has law got to do with it?” on Monday 11 February 2008 at 6pm.

PROFESSOR NICK WIKELEY (John Wilson Chair in Law, University of Southampton) will speak on “The Redesign of Child Support: the triumph of hope over experience” on
Tuesday 19 February 2008 at 6pm.

HELEN REECE (Reader in Law, Birkbeck College, University of London) will speak on “The Degradation of Parental Responsibility” on Wednesday 27 February 2008 at 6pm.

REBECCA PROBERT (School of Law, Warwick University) will speak on “Moral Marriage, Mistresses and Mayhew: cohabitation and the law in nineteenth-century England” on Wednesday 7 May 2008 at 6pm.

For a complete list of IALS lectures see here .

Lawyers' Hall of Fame

The Lawyer is celebrating its 20th anniversary and as part of the festivities it has launched a Lawyers' Hall of Fame . Three great family lawyers are on the list: Lady Justice Butler-Sloss, Baroness Hale & the late David Hershman QC. You can post comments on the site & make your own nominations. Maybe we should have a hall of fame specifically for family lawyers? On my list would have to be Professor Cretney, Richard White, David Bedingfield (for his wonderful books The Child in Need: Children, the State & the Law & Advocacy in Family Proceedings), Mr Justice Wall (the case management king), David Burrows & Roger Bird to name but a few. It might also be interesting to have a separate list for non-lawyers who have made a special contribution to family law: Professor Tim David, Julia Brophy, Angela Cannings, Matt O'Connor (founder of F4J)??? Who would be on your list?

Judicial Appointments

Stephen Wildblood QC has been appointed to the Circuit Bench and will be sitting in Exeter.

Joanne Harris, formerly of Garden Court Chambers, has also been appointed as a Circuit Judge and is sitting in Watford. She is the first of my contemporaries to be appointed to the Circuit Bench and whilst it will be a very great pleasure to address her as Your Honour it will also be more than a little weird and makes me feel ever so slightly old & grown up.

A laugh a minute? Not

John Bolch's blog Family Lore draws attention to the unfortunate position of a certain High Court Judge in a family case who has been removed from hearing a case for some supposedly jocular remarks about one of the parties (not just bad jokes, but thoroughly bad jokes). The case is commented on in the International Herald Tribune and rather more salaciously in the Daily Mail . Thankfully, their Lordships have not banned all jokes from the court room - just the thoroughly bad ones which might give an impression of racism, however unintentional. The full judgment delivered today is available as a pdf file on the Judiciary's website (in the what's new section) together with a statement from the Judge.