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28 March 2025 / Stephen Gold
Issue: 8110 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Civil way
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Civil way: 28 March 2025

Hold tightly in family; LPA is 100; suing too high; hello Business Ombudsman; new consumer law; employment awards up.

FINANCIAL REMEDY EXPRESS

We already have financial remedy applications (principally for periodical payments only) on the fast track. Now we are about to experience ‘express’ unlimited remedies for relative tiddlers through a 12-month pilot introduced by new PD 36H with FPR PD update no 1 of 2025 as from 7 April 2025. But not in all family court locations. The pilot is rushing to 33 centres including Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and, inevitably, Crewe with its 12 railway platforms. Not London where life is slower. The pilot will be limited to contested cases where the combined total of the parties’ net assets, excluding pension rights or pension protection fund compensation entitlement, is or is likely to be less than £250,000—or so considered to be by the applicant in the application.

On issue, the court will list a first hearing, intended as the FDR, within 16 to 20 weeks with a time estimate of

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

Fieldfisher partner appointed president as LSLA marks milestone year

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Firm promotes two lawyers to partnership across employment and family

Foot Anstey—five promotions

Foot Anstey—five promotions

Firm promotes five lawyers to partnership across key growth areas

NEWS
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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