Note: This post has been written by Holland Family Law Director, Jennifer McNeil. There is no doubt that the Family Court Service is in crisis – the situation is being felt nationwide. The Family Court system is not only overloaded with new cases but separating couples and parents frequently returning to argue over certain issues. However, innovation in family law is helping to ease the strain…
… Holland Family Law (HFL) director, Jennifer McNeil, highlights how HFL is contributing to innovation in family law to support our clients.
We preface this blog with this. HFL knows that Family Court managers and the judiciary are, of course, doing everything they can to try and minimise the impact that delays are having on families waiting for decisions that will have a huge bearing on their day-to-day lives.
But certainly for my own clients, their anxiety grows with each passing day, despite the best efforts of the Family Court to clear backlogs.
One innovation in family law introduced by our own local Family Court in Leicester is a new Private Law Strategy designed to remind local practitioners of the need to steer families away from Family Court wherever possible and to think differently about dispute resolution.
Innovation in Family Law from Holland Family Law
That is why we have just launched our Early Neutral Evaluation service. Early Neutral Evaluation or “ENE” is an innovative new concept that supports families in resolving their disputes, whether it relates to child arrangements or money and property, without them ever having to consider the Family Court.
The idea is that a family or couple would provide us with their respective views as to the issues that are preventing them from reaching an agreement and moving forward with their lives.
As highly experienced solicitors (dealing with family law matters for the last 20+ years), we can consider the issues and inform the parties (through a written indication) as to how the law says (and therefore how the Court would likely determine) their dispute should be settled.
The indication is non-binding but should be taken as a steer toward resolution and away from the Family Court, which can often be a gamble and, of course, swallow up huge amounts of money, time, and energy.
We aim to free parties of the dread of having to go to Court if they cannot see eye-to-eye by giving a neutral indication as to what they should do after having heard the issues that are consuming them.
There are many ways that solicitors can support families dealing with family law disputes although we appreciate that the involvement of a legal professional at any stage in a dispute still has a stigma that the parties are “going to war”.
We intend to break that stigma by encouraging parties to see that the involvement of a legal professional, especially one who can neutralise the issues and find a way forward, would actually be hugely benefit at any stage. It could also save the parties a significant amount of money.
With a little steer in the right direction, we want families to find a way forward for themselves and empower them with knowledge and understanding, and we hope that our ENE service will support many of those families nationwide who are struggling.
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