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A scandal in our midst

12 February 2009
Issue: 7356 / Categories: Features
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David Burrows laments the ruinous costs’ toll of family proceedings

'The ‘scandal’ of which Munby J complains is mostly of the lawyers’ doing: we must accept that and be ashamed'

In KSO v MJO and ors [2008] EWHC 3031 (Fam) a despairing Mr Justice Munby concluded his judgment by referring to “ancillary relief litigation conducted at ruinous expense to the parties” [75]. He went on, “something must be done…We simply cannot go on as we are” [81]; and aptly he quotes from Bleak House (Charles Dickens) Ch 65. Of Jarndyce v Jarndyce he includes Allan Vholes’s comment, that the estate has been entirely absorbed in costs, and “thus the suit lapses and melts away”.
And yes, something must be done: but by whom and to what agenda? The practising profession, bears a large proportion of blame; but what of the others involved: the judges, the civil servants, the politicians; and what of the procedures and formalities under which we have to operate and which engulf the unwitting family litigant?

Sloppy rule drafting
Many of us will remember

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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

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