NLJ this week: Family rules break their own simplicity commandment

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.’

MOVERS & SHAKERS

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London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

Fieldfisher partner appointed president as LSLA marks milestone year

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Firm promotes two lawyers to partnership across employment and family

Foot Anstey—five promotions

Firm promotes five lawyers to partnership across key growth areas

NEWS

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NLJ this week: Divorce ‘nuclear weapon’ freezes assets but entangles outsiders

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

NLJ this week: What counts as ‘rent’? Court says labour alone won’t do

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

Your magistrates’ court needs you!

Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process

NLJ this week: Freed but failed—justice system leaves the innocent empty-handed

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’

NLJ this week: Clarity on whistleblowing, settlements and tribunal limits

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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NLJ this week: Family rules break their own simplicity commandment

MOVERS & SHAKERS

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Foot Anstey—five promotions