CPD

Members who still need to clock up a few more CPD hours can breathe a sigh of relief: the lectures in the 2011 Autumn Lecture Series are now available for video-streaming:

COURT OF PROTECTION FOR FAMILY LAWYERS (M Chisholm)
ETHICS PANEL: Practical Advice on Professional Conduct (HHJ Hayward-Smith QC, A Kirk QC, F Feehan QC & D Woodward)
THE FUTURE FOR THE BAR: ABS (N Green QC)
A FAMILY PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE: Around the Family Division in 365 Days (The Hon. Mrs Justice Theis)
PUBLIC LAW UPDATE (Charles Geekie QC)
KERNOTT v JONES  (The latest) & PRE NUPS (John Wilson QC)
ONE WORLD – MANY JURISDICTIONS (James Turner QC)
FINANCIAL REMEDIES UPDATE (Michael Horton)

J Rowe QC’s PRIVATE LAW UPDATE will be available soon.

You must be an FLBA member and must be logged in to purchase and view the videos.

Legal Aid Bill Update

The Joint Committee on Human Rights reported on 19 Dec, the day before the Bill is due to enter Commitee stage in the Lords:

“Legal Aid is a vital safeguard of people’s right to access justice.  We are concerned that certain aspects of the Bill will undermine that right.  While we welcome the Government’s proposed amendments to enable victims of domestic violence to continue to obtain Legal Aid, we doubt that the Bill as drafted will achieve that aim.” (Hywell Davis MP – Chair of the Committee)

The report is critical of the Government’s impact assessments for failing properly to assess the extent of the likely impact of the changes to legal aid on various groups of vulnerable people, and for failing to take into account the likely cost to the justice system of the expected increase in the numbers of litigants in person arising from the proposed contraction of legal aid. The Committee further highlights its concern over the Bill’s domestic violence provisions.  Read more.

You can keep up with the proposals on the dedicated LASPO page on the Parliament website, where you can subscribe to updates by email or RSS feed.

(photo: Gazzat)

Welcome!

Welcome to the new FLBA website.

The site now features news and regular updates. Members will be able to access an enhanced members section. To log in and see the members noticeboard section scroll down and follow the instructions.

There may be a few things we are still ironing out over the next few weeks, so please bear with us!

We hope it will be a big improvement and we’d love to know what you think.

Family Affairs

Family Affairs Magazine is the tri-annual FLBA magazine.

You can view back issues of Family Affairs on the Noticeboard section of the website.

The next issue will be available shortly.

Who we are

The FLBA is the specialist Bar Association for the Family Bar in England & Wales.

We represent over 2,500 family barristers and are actively involved in promoting Family Justice through our work.

(photo: the style pa)

Family Justice Review Published

The long anticipated Family Justice Review Report was published on 3 November.

The Review panel explicitly recognises that the supply of properly qualified family lawyers is ‘vital’ to the protection of children.  It further recognises the important role which lawyers play in ensuring the speedy resolution of cases, in supporting families to negotiate settlements and in narrowing issues where matters are contested.   It expresses its concerns about the impact of proposed legal aid changes on the functioning of the courts.