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A joint effort

05 August 2011 / Graham Coy
Issue: 7477 / Categories: Features , Divorce , Family
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Graham Coy sings the praises of collaborative law

“There has got to be a better way than this.” How many times have clients said this when, eventually, they reach the end of court proceedings about their divorce, their children or their finances? Their view is often shared by their lawyers and even by the judges who have to make decisions where no agreement can be reached. The answer to the question is “yes”, there is a better way and it is “collaborative law”. This article will look at the nature and size of the problem, what collaborative law is and what it can offer.

High divorce rate

In 2009, there were 113,949 divorces, in other words over 250,000 people were caught up in the legal process. According to the court service, nearly 100,000 children under 16 were also involved in court proceedings started by one or other of their parents.
To put this into some perspective, this is more than the populations of some of our largest cities, Southampton, Leicester and Newcastle. What

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
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