Family

Job titles
Chief Executive and Senior Civil Clerk, 9 Gough Square Chambers

A leading common law set based in London but appearing in courts throughout England and Wales and abroad. Key practice areas are personal injury, clinical negligence, professional negligence, fraud and serious crime, family, police law, employment and property.

Family

The Family Law Bar has welcomed proposals to develop an integrated Family Justice Service and to cut back on delays.

Judiciary

District Judge Paul Mildred has warned the legal aid cuts will heap pressure on the courts, in his first public comments since becoming President of the Association of District Judges.

After 11 years as a government minister. former Attorney General, Baroness Scotland has returned to the Bar. She joins 4 Paper Buildings, where she will practise family law. Baroness Scotland, who was the youngest ever woman QC, at 35, and the first woman Attorney General, said: “Family breakdown is the cause of much suffering and I’m honoured to be joining a set which is known for its excellence and rooted in this area of law.”

Family Law

Sir Nicholas Wall, the President of the Family Division, has called for the anonymity of experts to be maintained in family cases.

Family 

A unified code of procedure for the family courts has been published. 

Delays getting longer caused by huge increase in scale of family breakdown 

Family judges have lost authority with the general public and this is contributing to “completely unacceptable” delays in the courts and damaging children’s welfare, a Family Division judge has warned. 

The proposed changes to legal aid funding will inhibit access to the  Family Justice System for the most vulnerable members of society –  the very people the reforms are dedicated to protect, believes Ian Bugg 

On 15 November 2010, the Ministry of Justice (“MoJ”) published its Green Paper “Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales” and, with it, the Government has introduced possibly the most profound changes to the Family Justice System since the introduction of the Legal Aid Scheme in 1949. 

Chris McWatters believes that the FLBA Chairman will need all his diplomatic wizardry to deal with the fizzing brew of change facing the Family Bar 

Lord Justice Wall, the President of the Family Division, has called for greater “judicial continuity” in family cases and warned of the trauma which separating parents inflict on their offspring.