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NLJ this week: Family law focus & looking ahead to 2025

10 January 2025
Issue: 8099 / Categories: Legal News , Family , Divorce , Child law
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202719
Family law moved fast last year, with a renewed focus on non-court dispute resolution, more transparency and new protections for domestic abuse victims. And there’s more to come in 2025, as Ruth Omoregie, associate solicitor, and Lola Ajayi, solicitor at Anthony Gold, write in this week’s NLJ.

Omoregie and Ajayi explore key developments and decisions in the past year, including an important decision on the matrimonialisation of assets, examining their implications for families navigating legal challenges.

As for the year ahead, reforms could be introduced on financial remedies on divorce and the rights of cohabiting couples.

Omoregie and Ajayi write: ‘Some jurisdictions, such as Ireland, Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand, have implemented reforms to offer better protections for cohabitants, such as laws to protect cohabiting couples or provisions of a de facto legal status after a period of cohabitation/children. There are calls for similar reforms in England and Wales, with expectations of change in the near future.’
Issue: 8099 / Categories: Legal News , Family , Divorce , Child law
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Carey Olsen—Kim Paiva

Carey Olsen—Kim Paiva

Group partner joins Guernsey banking and finance practice

Morgan Lewis—Kat Gibson

Morgan Lewis—Kat Gibson

London labour and employment team announces partner hire

Foot Anstey McKees—Chris Milligan & Michael Kelly

Foot Anstey McKees—Chris Milligan & Michael Kelly

Double partner appointment marks Belfast expansion

NEWS
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has not done enough to protect the future sustainability of the legal aid market, MPs have warned
Writing in NLJ this week, NLJ columnist Dominic Regan surveys a landscape marked by leapfrog appeals, costs skirmishes and notable retirements. With an appeal in Mazur due to be heard next month, Regan notes that uncertainties remain over who will intervene, and hopes for the involvement of the Lady Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls in deciding the all-important outcome
After the Southport murders and the misinformation that followed, contempt of court law has come under intense scrutiny. In this week's NLJ, Lawrence McNamara and Lauren Schaefer of the Law Commission unpack proposals aimed at restoring clarity without sacrificing fair trial rights
The latest Home Office figures confirm that stop and search remains both controversial and diminished. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth of De Montfort University analyses data showing historically low use of s 1 PACE powers, with drugs searches dominating what remains
Boris Johnson’s 2019 attempt to shut down Parliament remains a constitutional cautionary tale. The move, framed as a routine exercise of the royal prerogative, was in truth an extraordinary effort to sideline Parliament at the height of the Brexit crisis. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Graham Zellick KC dissects how prorogation was wrongly assumed to be beyond judicial scrutiny, only for the Supreme Court to intervene unanimously
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