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Rhetoric, reviews & reality

09 September 2010 / David Allison
Issue: 7432 / Categories: Features , Family
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David Allison berates the uneasy alliance of family politics & law

When I was elected as Resolution chairman in March the political parties were fighting to be elected. In my speech to the Resolution national conference I warned then that political parties offered “puff rather than progress” and failed to engage with the reality of family life in the UK.

Six months on, and with Cameron and Clegg at the helm of a coalition government that few had predicted, the rhetoric around family law remains far removed from the reality for families facing the consequences of severe and far-reaching cuts. Meanwhile the family law profession is grappling with a series of government reviews which promise to fundamentally alter the system in which justice is done.

Let me start with the rhetoric. We have been told that “strong and stable families are the bedrock of a strong and stable society”, a taskforce has been set up by the prime minister to put “strong, stable and loving families at the heart of British life”, and

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

Blake Morgan managing partner appointed chair of CBI South-East Council

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Commercial dispute resolution team welcomes partner in Cambridge

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

NEWS
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Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
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