Darkness is cheap
A family solicitor's Christmas Carol, by Marilyn Stowe
Christmas is now upon us and another year has flown by. Last night we sat in our little 'snug room', watching the snow fall outside and musing upon the past 12 months. My husband is a fellow solicitor and the head of a legal aid practice. When I asked him for his 2011 forecast, he didn't think twice. 'Most likely there will be savage cuts to the legal aid budget: crime, mental health, family... Who knows how bad it will get?'
His firm is nearly 30 years old. I look back through time and remember the unrelenting work my husband and his partners (including me) have put in to build a practice that serves the poor and needy of Leeds. Things were different then.
I could get an emergency legal aid certificate and an order removing a violent husband from his home in the magistrates' court, serve it on the husband myself and lodge a copy at the local police station. All done in a day '“ cheaply, with minimal fuss. Fast forward to the present day, with a legal aid system half-drowned in costly bureaucracy, and all the partners' work could count for nothing. It feels to me like we have Mr Scrooge in government, saying 'Legal aid? Bah humbug!'
No easy answers
In truth, family law as we know it is primed for radical change. An economist heads the family law justice review. Iain Duncan Smith's centre for social justice proposes marriage as the 'answer' to family breakdown. Our system of law could certainly do with tweaking but who, ultimately, would benefit '“ or suffer most '“ from an extreme overhaul?
Speaking to other solicitors, I find I am not the only one filled with foreboding. I expect that if A Christmas Carol: the lawyers' edition was in the offing, with Kenneth Clarke, George Osborne or even our prime minister as Scrooge, there would be plenty of competition for three plum parts: the Christmas ghosts of family law past, present and yet to come.
Looking to the past, I recall the fiasco of the 1996 Family Law Act. The then government tried to introduce divorce reform based on holding dead marriages together '“ and failed. Now, with cuts at the top of the agenda, ministers have family law within their sights once more. What lies ahead?
A bleak vision
As the ghost of family law yet to come, I would shift the focus to the 'ordinary' couples who make up the bulk of most solicitors' caseloads. Cases involving the wealthy have made the headlines this year, but 'resounding' decisions such as that in Radmacher can only ever affect a small number of people.
Instead I would show our Scrooge what happens when couples whose marriages have ended must stay together; when children must witness fight after fight; when vulnerable spouses must settle for pitiful amounts because they can no longer afford to fight for justice. And what if, to save money, couples must resort to tribunals with rigid rules and no discretion? Haven't we had sufficient experience with the child support agency to know it could end up a disaster?
As my husband said, we will have to wait and see. Dickens' Christmas Carol ends on a high note '“ and in this lawyers' edition, the final chapter is not yet written. It would be good to see the retention of the flexibility built into our ancillary relief legislation. And if Mr Scrooge introduced law for the thousands of disadvantaged cohabitants and their children'¦ now that would be a happy ending.