For anyone representing themselves in England & Wales the book Do Your Own Divorce by John Bolch of Family Lore is now in print. As part of the Insite Law Magazine free online resources project, the first chapter An Introduction to Family Law has now gone up.
Meanwhile as Scottish Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, is facing a little bother with the Americans over his decision to free the Lockerbie bomber Lucy Reed of Pink Tape is hosting transatlantic Blawg Review #226.
Many people do not seem to realise they have a duty to use information given in court proceedings for the purposes of the proceedings only and there are restrictions on disclosing information. When the rules don't allow it disclosing information contravenes Article 6, Human Rights Act 1998, the right to a fair hearing, and if children are involved their rights to privacy and anonymity. 
Lucy Reed of Pink Tape has now compiled a useful list of ten things bloggers should know when writing about family proceedings.
Liz Jones has written a scathing attack on the Wikivorce website in her Daily Mail report "How warring husbands and wives are pouring out bitterness on new 'divorce website" this morning. She makes very valid points about the dubious benefits to venting and that websites are no substitute for counsellors or lawyers. However, I am somewhat bemused by one comment that Wikivorce is seething with so many stories about men who end up in a council flat. As a regular visitor to the forums I am only aware of one man who ended up in a council flat.
In the article Liz Jones contends that "instead of a site telling you how to arm yourself both in emotional and legal terms, there should be a site which makes sure you actually want to get married in the first place."
"You should have to be counselled, extensively, before you are allowed to shuffle down that aisle and conceive that poor blameless child who will have to face the arguments and witness the mud slinging."
Actually if nothing else Wikivorce demonstrates that married couples should try to resolve their problems because they do not just disappear on divorce, particularly when there is a lifetime of parenting ahead.
Full story Source The Daily Mail 23 June 2009
John Bolch, aka King John, of Family Lore has been very busy indeed writing this Blawg Review which has taken me the best part of a day to read as I kept going off on a tangent following the links to matters as diverse as freedom of the press, the Tolpuddle Martyrs and a lawyer charged with billing during sex. It is a shame work kept getting in the way.
I'm not sure I really count as a blawger but having been included makes me feel much less out on a limb.
More observant readers may have noticed I changed the photograph in the header of my blog a week or so ago. The old photograph was very atmospheric but rather grey and dismal. 
I thought it would be more appropriate to feature the sun and to avoid any copyright issues I cropped one of my daughter's photographs. Since then a number of people have emailed to ask where it was taken and I'm afraid to disappoint, but it wasn't in Scotland.
The photograph is Mitre Point, close to Milford Sound in the southwestern South Island, New Zealand.
The message for divorcing couples is things are not always as they seem and there is a difference in believing something to be true and knowing it is true.
Andrew Woolley of Family-Lawfirm warns divorce advice has many traps for the unwary. In my earlier blog post back in January 2008 I wrote self-help groups can be a good source of information, advice, guidance and support but it can be unreliable, or plain wrong, sometimes with disastrous results. My advice to anyone divorcing would always be consult a lawyer early on in the process to find out where you stand and what your options are.
Last week a national newspaper highlighted the advantages of Wikivorce (see this post) in providing advice about the legal process and I think it is important to remember the basis upon which members like me originally registered.
Let me start by saying that Wikivorce is not a replacement for solicitors. Wikivorce is a place you can learn, share and make friends. It is a community of people going through divorce (or recently divorced) who support each other during a very challenging stage in their lives. In fact I believe that Wikivorce can complement the work of solicitors by providing its members with emotional support, but also basic information on the divorce process. This should enable them to work more effectively with their solicitor, to achieve wherever possible an amicable, negotiated out of court settlement.
When we divorced it never crossed my mind to use the internet and it was a few years later when I was looking for a specific piece of information I first stumbled across a divorce online forum. Initially I couldn't make much sense of what people said but through reading others experiences and checking the facts I became little more educated and begun to understand how the systems in England & Wales and Scotland worked. I must confess though, chat rooms are not for me and only once did I inadvertently enter one and made a quick exit. Today the women's section of The Times carries an article about the development and success of Wikivorce which draws on Wikipedia, in that it is up to members to add an interesting resources to the site whenever they find one.
Like tens of thousands of men and women facing divorce, Jane was at her wits’ end when she turned to the internet. There she found wikivorce.com, an online support group for couples facing the end of their marriage. The website, which was launched two years ago and boasts a new visitor every minute, is an online community that offers free access to information, support and advice for people going through divorce or separation.
While online chats about divorce and marriage troubles are multiplying on sites such as mumsnet and ivillage, specialist sites such as ondivorce.co.uk and divorce-online.co.uk, which claims 31,000 members, appear to be proof that divorcing couples are increasingly seeking friendship and advice anonymously and online through chat rooms and the blogosphere. But will these burgeoning internet divorce chat rooms mean an end to acrimonious courtroom battles and the need for professional relationship counsellors?.....
Nick Longford, the chairman of Resolution, the organisation that represents 5,700 family lawyers, welcomes the online support groups but warns people to think carefully before attempting to save legal fees and going it alone with the help of a website. Legally, divorce can be very complicated, he says, and although lawyers can cost anything from £150 to £400 an hour, you pay for their experience and emotional support in navigating the treacherous divorce waters. If you go to court, costs can double. If the case reaches a final hearing, they can treble.
“I would hate people to think that this is a panacea and make themselves vulnerable,” he says. “As for selfrepresenting, there is an awful lot of law involved. We need a number of methods so that people can make an informed choice, but it’s not easy and it can be a full-time job.”
Of course, he would say that — as he admits — but he points out that while costs can spiral in court, most of Resolution’s clients manage to sort out their differences through lawyers and do not end up in front of a judge.
Christine Northam, a counsellor with Relate — which is in talks about working alongside Wikivorce and endorsing it as a tool for support in divorce — agrees that chat rooms have their place but insists that they are no substitute for professional advice.
“These sites may help by giving you good emotional support — but they may also mean that you stay stuck in a rut and carry on thinking that all men are bastards, and so on,” she says. “Counselling is about facing what has gone wrong and letting go. By knowing yourself a bit more, you should avoid making the same mistakes again — if you haven’t had counselling you can get sucked into repeating those mistakes.”
Northam also warns users to be aware of the risks attached to using divorce sites. No advice comes without an agenda, she says, be it from your mother, a friend or a newfound wiki mate, so users should consider thoughtfully where the advice they are given is coming from before acting on it.
PRESS RELEASERead more...
Wikivorce, the world's fastest growing divorce support community is continuing its expansion by launching Wikivorce Australia, an Aussie specific version of its very popular divorce and separation social networking website.
Due to the global financial slump an increasing number of separating couples are turning to the internet to find free advice and support, as well as cost effective legal solutions. The decreasing value of their homes and pensions means they are less able to afford expensive lawyer's bills.
Wikivorce is an online divorce support community offering free advice, support and information. It now has over 35,000 members. One new person visits the site every minute. It is the most visited divorce website in the UK with close to 1 million page views per month.
Wikivorce founder, Ian Rispin, said: "Wikivorce is now well established as the leading divorce support website in England. Two weeks ago we launched our Scottish site and today we are going live with a fully localised version of the site for the people going through a break up in Australia."
The new site will contain a library of information specific to divorce in Australia; court forms will be available to download together with information about how to fill them in and members will be able to share their stories, support each other and exchange useful advice and information about how to get through the divorce process either with legal representation or without.
One of the most important parts of the site is the forum where members can ask questions about every aspect of divorce and separation. Although there will be sections that are specific to Australian procedures, members will also be able to receive - and offer - emotional support as part of the growing global Wikivorce support community.
There are only a handful of Scottish blawgs and I still haven't come across a family law one (Jonathan Mitchell QC does the occasional excellent post about family law) which I think is a great shame because blogging is a great way of engaging with the public and correcting any misconceptions. To spur lawyers on there is Charon QC's post The Bar Urged To Use The Internet Thingy to Market Themselves..... Shock Horror 
Lucy Reed of Pink Tape makes valid points about the disadvantages of using an online divorce service here. Firstly, the fastest ‘UK’s best selling managed divorce service’ is causing a logjam and therefore the court local to them is perhaps no longer the 'UK's fastest divorce court.' Secondly, someone who is someway down the separation route might discover they need to travel a great distance to resolve a dispute about children at the court local to the online divorce service where the divorce petition is pending. 
John Bolch of Family Lore asks is Tagging:A Good Thing? after the case of Re A Minor (Family Proceedings: Electronic Tagging) [2009] EWHC 710 (Fam), when the mother, who had twice wrongfully removed the child from the jurisdiction, agreed to be electronically tagged whilst the child was with her. 
Marilyn Stowe's post about a mother denied all access to her children by the court provoked some interesting reaction. According to The Times the woman was judged to be too indulgent a parent an banned from seeing her children for three years. Marilyn raised concerns about whether the court should have taken such action and John Bolch played the Devil's Advocate asking how is the court to deal with a parent causing children to suffer serious emotional harm? Of particular interest are the informed, objective comments on Marilyn's blog from those professionals involved with intervening in difficult contact cases advocating a 'whole host of interventions that might be attempted before drastic measures are taken.'
Rarely in my experience do these cases boil down just to the behaviour of one parent. We really need to more in terms of providing education and support to families going through break down at an early stage to give people coping strategies and prevent as many of these cases as possible in the first place. 
Judith Middleton of Judith's Divorce Blog has an excellent topical story about listing income needs.
Last week Marilyn Stowe gave some good tips on how to minimise the costs of divorce in a recession in an article she wrote in The Telegraph;
• Move swiftly
• Get your timing right
• Make interim arrangements for bills
• Save, don't splurge
• Consider using a collaborative lawyer
• Look out for deliberately low offers and valuations
• Cash is king
• Avoid Mesher orders
• Know what to do if your spouse goes bankrupt
Full story Source The Telegraph 15 May 2009
.. on the internet this week
Poster: Judges just treat you as though you are a porn.
Posted By Captain Oates on 28-04-2009
Just wanted to say, on reflection, I think she is pretending to be someone she is not.
1st Poster: I know every situation is different but hey thats why 90%of men end up in contact centres.
Me: Oh my, where did that figure come from?
US trained attorney: I fear that like 73.2% of statistics, it was made up on the spot.
2nd Poster: "90%of men end up in contact centres
Where did that figure come from?"
Too much reliance on car based satellite navigation hardware
Mr Familoo wanting to know if Lord Justice Wall's judgement quoting Philip Larkin -
"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you."
- is what they call 'poetic justice.'
Me: By their very nature divorce forums will attract a disproportionate number of posers who are most likely to see matters in a subjective way ..... (dodgy 't' key :blush:)Read more...
Jonathan Mitchell QC : Google Street View and the law
Following suggestions that Google Street View which was launched in Scotland earlier this month is illegal Jonathan examines the legal issues. His conclusion is bad news for cheating spouses (or any miscreant) caught on camera as there is no authority to support the notion that photographing ordinary street scenes is unlawful.
Family Lore: Brave new world
In a speech to the family lawyers organistation in England & Wales Resolution Mr Justice Andrew McFarlane said new plans to open family courts to the media do not go far enough. The press release is here.
Family Lore: Resolution calls for no-fault divorce
Resolution called for a radical overhaul of divorce laws at it's national conference by asking the government to help take the blame out of divorce and separation by introducing no-blame divorce. It was also said the government "should commit to undertaking a thorough review of family law so that couples can be clearer from the outset about how their finances will be divided." The press release is available here.
Marilyn Stowe: Financial Dispute Resolution – look out for these stumbling blocks
In 2006 new cost rules were introduced in England & Wales for ancillary relief (the court procedure for resolving financial matters) requiring each party to pay their own costs. Marilyn Stowe has noticed a trend with the new rules being used as a weapon to force one party into accepting an offer, because they are worried about mounting legal cost.
Marilyn Stowe: Mesher Orders and Martin Orders: What You Need To Know
In England & Wales Mesher & Martin orders are sometimes used to defer the sale of the former matrimonial home to enable one party (usually the wife) to temporarily remain living there whilst the other party maintains an interest in the property in the form of a chargeback. This can be fraught with problems when the time comes to sell the house, leaving the person who remained in the former matrimonial home unable to afford to buy another property.
Pink Tape: Three posts about the impact of the government’s latest round of proposed cuts in legal aid in England & Wales on vulnerable families and children here, here and here.
Judith's Divorce Blog
Interesting posts about the recession, not intervening in others marital relations and winning in Judith's unique style
Los Angeles Divorce and Family Law: International Divorce
An article from the The Economist. Thanks to John Bolch of Family Lore Focus for the tip off.
The more observant readers will have noticed earlier this month I added a link to the new Divorce Survivor forum and the Directory on the bar at the top of this page. The Directory is a shorter version of my private Netvibe pages and includes feeds from UK divorce and family law blogs/blawgs and further afield. On the right hand side of the page are feeds from other useful sites such as CaseCheck and The Journal.
There were a few hitches with the forum which have now been resolved (thanks to those who provided feedback - I hope the change of colour and layout meets with everyone's approval ;) Anyone whose life is impacted by separation or divorce is welcome to join .
Pink Tape - In her post, Family Justice Under Threat, last week Lucy Reed made a heartfelt plea for people to respond before 13 March 2009 to a Legal Services Commission's consultation on proposals to change the way legal aid is paid for in England & Wales. Significant cuts to legal aid on family cases, specifically disputes between divorcing couples about finances and property and disputes between parents about children are proposed. In real terms the cuts to barristers' pay will amount to approximately 50% overall and as much as 75% in more complex disputes. The danger is that the cuts make practice at the junior end of the work not viable so there will come a time when there are no experienced barristers to take on difficult cases. People will then be unrepresented or will have inadequate representation so individual hearings will run longer, cases will run longer and the system which is already struggling will slow down even more.
Chicago Divorce Lawyer - We often hear about the figures of children from divorced families who do less well when compared to children of intact families, but to my knowledge there are no figures that tell us how many children grow to be successful because they overcame the difficulties relating to their parent's separation. Marie Fahner's post, Successful Children of Divorce, suggests the qualities that Barack Obama learned from the experience of his parents' divorce are reflected in how he has run his life and how quickly he is able to overcome differences. If handled properly, divorce may teach children the necessary skills for a successful future. It seems to me a disproportionately high number of the world's most famous people have overcome childhood adversity and throughout history there has been many children brought up with the absence of at least one parent who then went on to do great things eg Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, Tom Cruise, the Duke of Wellington, Alan Johnson (Secretary of State for Health) George Eliot, Marie Curie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Maya Angelou.
Darn Divorce - I have just added DWordDiva's blog billed as a collection of random thoughts and news on the Dreaded D-Word to my blog roll. She says "Sometimes its just better to laugh it off, that’s all." I couldn't agree more.
Divorce Manual - - Natasha Phillips is a single mother who has gone through the divorce process in the UK. She also has a legal background and has written the Divorce Manual a guide to getting through divorce. Just a word of caution, although Natasha says the site is dedicated to demystifying divorce, the divorce courts and divorce process in Britain as a whole the Manual is actually about the system in England & Wales.
Recent changes to my blog have caused a few problems and reminded me of the hapless Sheriff Robert McCreadie who managed to delete evidence in a trial after hitting the wrong button on his laptop. He then blamed a solicitor for speaking too quickly. Apparently on other occasions he sent the jury home after his computer crashed and interrupted cases because the W and E on the keyboard didn't work. The story was recounted by Hector McQueen in the University of Edinburgh's blog Scots Law News during 2007 here.
So in true Sheriff McCreadie style I managed to loose all my links which have now been retrieved and updated. The new links in the right hand sidebar are;
Faculty of Advocates
Hague Convention ( Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction)
National Debt Line Scotland
REMO (Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders)
Reunite (charity specialising in international parental child abduction)
Scottish Solicitors' Standards
UN Convention on the Rights of a Child
Relationships Scotland (formerly Relate and Family Mediation Scotland) and the Scottish Family Law Group have updated their sites since I first added them to my list. There is a bug with the links so some of the hover links and visited links don't work which I'm trying to fix.
Another problem was was the tracking of the number of visitors to my blog didn't appear to work, but rather mysteriously it seems I only had one visitor in two days and a bumper number on the third day. I had altered the text size and then realised I was using my laptop and desktop users probably couldn't read the small text - doh!
Anyway I hope everyone can read the text and I would appreciate feedback about the text size, the tag cloud which I've reduced in size, the colour of links in the posts and whether the sidebar links are difficult to read because they are squashed into a narrow column.
Now all I need is a .scot domain name.
I'm still a bit behind with blogging, but at last I have managed to get all my papers to my accountant so he can work out how much tax I'm due to pay at the end of the month so hopefully I'll have a bit more time.There are one or two stories and blogs worth mentioning.
Following on from The Ancillary Actuary's earlier debate about women loosing out on pensions in divorce last weekend The Independent carried an article The better halves who get the worst of it when romance dies looking at the problem. David Lister, a partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya, raises the point that a wife will need a greater percentage of the pension fund as it has to go longer.
Continuing the pension theme in a judgement M-D v D [2008] EWHC 1929 (Fam) recently released in England a wife successfully appealed an ancillary relief order on basis that the order had failed to make sufficient provision for her pension and the husband ordered to pay further lump sum of £35,000. Thanks to John Bolch of Family Lore Focus for the lead on this and also a post Ever Heard of NAPOD? Divorce : The Blog about…Divorce
This is about a trade body for companies who provide online divorce services but are not regulated. However, it appears there is just one company behind this who are promoting it as a reason to use their service over any other.
Incidently John Bolch has started a new Family Lore Focus Forum.
Finally in The Times article How to make divorce feel great Amanda Lynch looks at a London-based service called Divorce Support. Its founder, Charlotte Friedman, was a family law barrister for 25 years, before training as a therapist, and now offers individual therapy or group sessions for fellow divorcees.
In Marylyn Stowe's post 'Kitchen Confidential – by guest blogger Jonathan James' the misuse of documents and information during divorce proceedings, in particular copies of documents “left lying around” are considered in light of the recent English case White v Withers & Anor [2008] EWHC 2821 (QB)
Nigel Bradshaw of the Ancillary Actuary highlights two of three systematic failings in the way pension issues are settled in most divorces that causes a wife, or rather 'the person with the smaller final salary pension,' to lose out. The first fault, using CETVs for valuing final salary pensions is explained here and the second, the common practice of discounting, or reducing, a pension value when offsetting, is here.
I think it's right to question the logic of discounting a pension for offsetting purposes in divorce. From a finances POV I don't understand the idea that assets which can't be readily accessed are less valuable than those that can. I've never come across this in other countries apart from in England. Is it an American idea? (I always blame the Americans first and actuaries second) 
Liquidity is not fixed and can vary depending on willing buyers and sellers in the market so is often only available in rising markets. Therefore there is no guarantee a house is a liquid asset all the time either.
John Bolch of Family Lore posts regarding the One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain launch at the House of Lords. The campaign is seeking legislation to curb the influence of sharia law in Britain. You can add your support by signing the Sharia Petition.

A quick roundup of some blogs in the last week or so.
John Bolch of Family Lore post, Contact provisions implemented at last, pointing out the new measures under the Children and Adoption Act 2006 to enforce contact orders are to come into force in England & Wales on the 8 December.
Lucy Reed of Pink Tape has written an excellent post called The Unverifiable Truth in relation to the The Times Family Justice Campaign for greater openness. This raises the point that people's accounts of decisions involving them, which they consider wrong or unjust, will hardly be objective. They will naturally feel aggrieved and the truth is unverifiable when the only source of information is the individuals concerned.
Continuing the epistemology theme in The Fat Bigot Opines' post entitled Wigs & Gowns "I Think" the Fat Bigot fears the relaxing of the formality of dress will result in the relaxation of court proceedings. Over time this could lead to "I think" advocacy, as witnessed in American courts, rather than concentrating on the evidence.
Jaqui Gillatt of Bloody Relations posted a video of the great Leonard Cohen's Democracy is Coming. As of today that should be Democracy Is Now Here.
Hector MacQueen of Edinburgh University's Scots Law News reports the latest episode in the Cockerel Wars: the return of Charlie. This is an ongoing saga about a night time curfew handed down to a cockerel, Charlie. In August this year Charlie's owner admitted a breach of an order to regulate Charlie's crowing early in the morning and the court was told the cockerel wasn't making so much noise as in his younger years. Following this up the local paper has written about the bird's impending demise and Charlie is to be buried with honour.
For those separated or divorced (or anyone else) having difficulty sleeping at night there is a link to the online Silence Your Rooster Insomnia Game.
Jonathan Mitchell QC was the senior counsel representing the petitioner in the case or C-v-C (or NJC-v-NPC) I wrote about in this earlier post. The father was representing himself and there was indication that he intended to drag out the hearing. I believe it is a common problem that litigants in person have difficulty in keeping their submissions tight and because they don't know the rules of evidence bring out material which, for one reason or another, isn't relevant. Invariably cases take longer and in NJC-v-NPC there was a degree of urgency so an order was sought limiting how long the parties might address the court. See Jonathan's post C v C: a precedent for fixed time limits on speeches in the Court of Session
The opinion in this case was anonymised and a few weeks ago I was somewhat surprised to see an article on the net about extradition proceedings running in parallel to NJC-v-NPC which named the father. Apparently something similar happened to the father who recently won an appeal overturning decisions by sheriffs in Aberdeen and an English Court that the child residency case should be heard in English courts (RAB v MIB) . Jonathan covers this in another post Anonymity and privacy in case reporting in Scotland and makes the point it is hard to defend the publication of sensitive personal information of named persons, yet Scottish courts do this all the time.
I'd like to take this opportunity to say it's great that at last someone in the legal profession in Scotland is posting about family law.
I was going to blog about a series of articles about the secretiveness of family courts in England & Wales in The Times this week and I've been pipped at the post by John Bolch of Family Lore here. The only things I would add is according to this Times report apparently the Council of Europe is instigating an investigation into the matter and during May the Guardian carried an interesting article here about what really goes on in family courts.
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