Family law specialist, solicitor-advocate and commentator David Burrows looks back at his 50 years in family law, in this week’s NLJ. What’s changed? And how does the reality of some of those changes differ from what was originally envisaged? What could be improved?
Burrows, an NLJ columnist, looks back to the genesis of mediation which ‘we all thought’ would be government-funded. He reflects how his working life was ‘transformed’ by the Children Act 1989 and the Child Support Act 1991.
Burrows also questions the point of separate rules for family and civil proceedings. ‘Sometimes they are in parallel, sometimes they needlessly diverge. I am a fan of CPR 1998. But for the rule-makers to have created two sets of rules helps no one. And what is truly remarkable, the respective sets of rule-makers seem rarely to talk to one another.’
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