Blockchain technology has generated a significant amount of attention since its first use in 2008, as a public ledger for the cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin. However, the potential utilisation of this technology in finance, business and even litigation is only now being recognised. What is the Blockchain? A Blockchain is a digital... Read More
More and more families in the UK are approaching surrogacy as the only option to have children that are genetically linked to them. Before 2008, the court made fewer than 50 parental orders compared to about 300 parental orders made each year now, allowing for the children to be handed over to the parents from the birth mother. Given the rapid... Read More
Greece has taken a step forward in the fight for equal rights, with the Greek parliament recently passing legislation allowing gay couples to foster children. The ban on gay couples adopting children still stands, but the new law will allow same sex couples in civil partnerships to foster children while the child is in the process of returning... Read More
Legal bodies in Australia are looking into using family law style mediation to help resolve situations involving elder-abuse. Graham Hill, National Legal Aid Chairman, says the mediation model designed for use in family law cases has an 80% success rate and hopes to extend this effective measure to cases of elder abuse. The kind of cases... Read More
MPs are calling for a change in the law to back grandparents who want to see their grandchildren after parents split up. MPs from all parties are backing an amendment to the Children’s Act 1989 which would establish a presumption that a relationship with grandparents and extended family is in the best interest of the child. Only... Read More
In a judgment released this week, the press regulator has found that the Times distorted coverage about Muslim foster carers in a widely reported case last year. The Times ran the headline, "Christian child forced into Muslim foster care", on 28th August 2017. It concerned a child placed with two Muslim households in Tower Hamlets.... Read More
Charles Keiden and Rebecca Steinfeld are a couple who have been together for seven years. Although they have two children and are committed to each other, they do not wish to get married. They want to commit to each other in a way that they believe "captures the essence of [their] relationship and [their] values." For them, this is... Read More
The High Court has ruled in favour of an elderly woman in her Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 claim whose late partner and cohabitee of more than 40 years had not provided for her in his will. The Claimant, a 79 year old woman named Joan Thompson, lived with her partner, Wynford Hodge, on his property for 42 years.... Read More
Grandparents will always want to be a part of their grandchildren’s lives and, beyond the purely personal, they often have a crucial contribution to make towards childcare. Sometimes, however, this crucial relationship is severed, with the divorce of the child’s parents often the primary reason. With personal relationships... Read More
More than four in ten applications to the civil division of the Court of Appeal now come from litigants in person. The surprising figure was highlighted by Sir Thomas Etherton, Master of the Rolls, when delivering the Conkerton Memorial Lecture at the Liverpool Law Society in March. In the family courts, figures for the first quarter of 2017... Read More