Legal representation drops in family courts

There is no legal representative for either party in one third (34%) of private law cases in the family court, Ministry of Justice statistics for the period April to June 2016 have revealed. By comparison, this was true for 17% of cases in April to June 2013. Private law cases generally took longer where either the respondent or both parties had legal representation—16 weeks (both applicant and respondent legally represented) and 19.6 weeks (respondent legally represented) compared to 10.7 weeks (applicant legally represented) and 13.5 weeks where neither party had legal representation.