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14 July 2023
Issue: 8033 / Categories: Legal News , Family , Child law , Procedure & practice
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NLJ this week: Family rules break their own simplicity commandment

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Rules should be ‘simple and simply expressed’, according to the Courts Act 2003—yet Mr Justice Mostyn recently urged rule-makers to look again at the ‘Byzantine’ rules governing the release of documents to children proceedings.

In this week’s NLJ, solicitor advocate and NLJ columnist David Burrows looks at the case, EBK v DLO, and the surrounding issues.

Burrows writes: ‘This subject takes an unsuspecting parent into a variety of confusing (including for Mostyn J) and confused crosscurrents of law and procedural rules. As this article concludes, the twists demanded by the rules may justify parties to a case like EBK in seeking a declaration that the rules as they now stand are barely lawful.’ 

Read more on the 'tangled web' here.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Thackray Williams—Lucy Zhu

Thackray Williams—Lucy Zhu

Dual-qualified partner joins as head of commercial property department

Morgan Lewis—David A. McManus

Morgan Lewis—David A. McManus

Firm announces appointment of next chair

Burges Salmon—Rebecca Wilsker

Burges Salmon—Rebecca Wilsker

Director joins corporate team from the US

NEWS
What safeguards apply when trust corporations are appointed as deputy by the Court of Protection? 
Disputing parties are expected to take part in alternative dispute resolution (ADR), where this is suitable for their case. At what point, however, does refusing to participate cross the threshold of ‘unreasonable’ and attract adverse costs consequences?
When it comes to free legal advice, demand massively outweighs supply. 'Millions of people are excluded from access to justice as they don’t have anywhere to turn for free advice—or don’t know that they can ask for help,' Bhavini Bhatt, development director at the Access to Justice Foundation, writes in this week's NLJ
When an ex-couple is deciding who gets what in the divorce or civil partnership dissolution, when is it appropriate for a third party to intervene? David Burrows, NLJ columnist and solicitor advocate, considers this thorny issue in this week’s NLJ
NLJ's latest Charities Appeals Supplement has been published in this week’s issue
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