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Reporting the family courts

21 March 2025 / Alexandra Hirst
Issue: 8109 / Categories: Features , Profession , Family
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211925
A route to justice or a concern for clients? Alexandra Hirst weighs up the benefits & risks of the transparency pilot scheme
  • The year-long transparency pilot scheme allows the press greater access to the family courts.
  • The biggest challenge will be establishing what reporters can report, based on what they have heard and read at the hearings they attend.
  • Clients may well be concerned about personal information being reported, which could inhibit and censor their evidence. However, the motivations behind the scheme are wholly positive.

The transparency pilot scheme has been in place in all financial remedy proceedings across the country since the end of January 2025, and it will run for a year.

Proponents of the scheme are seeking to improve the lack of public access to, and awareness of, what takes place in the family law courts and how judges come to decisions relating to children and families. There is a concern, following decisions in high-profile public law cases, that decisions are being made behind closed

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
Writing in NLJ this week, Victoria Rylatt and Robyn Laye of Anthony Gold Solicitors examine recent international relocation cases where allegations of domestic abuse shaped outcomes
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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