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OCTOBER 2013
Divorce Law
107
their options, because if they are hooked into staying in the matrimonial home they may have to sacrifice too much to do so, such as trading some of their maintenance or some of their pensions. So often a woman will trade off to stay in the home, yet it is better to get them to see that getting a new home can be fun and exciting and the start of their new life.
Have you seen much of an impact from the Legal Services act at all?
I think what we have seen is that by there being no legal aid or legal funding, there are so many people choosing to represent themselves that the absolute knock on effect has been to clog up the system, and it is only going to get worse. It was something that wasn’t foreseen and in matrimonial cases, the process should be quick, short, sharp and to the point, and that is not what clients are getting. There have been such cutbacks generally that it is grinding the system to a halt, and that causes much more distress to the client.
So to summarise, the first impact of the Legal Services Act has been so far to clog up the court. The second is that there are certain firms that were providing legal funding that are trying to ‘cut price’ the divorce cases, and they are making mistakes. This means that firms like ours are then having clients come to us in horror asking us to unravel the mess that those other firms have got them into. This teaches us that cheap can be expensive in the end.
How do you see the future of divorce law progressing?
Sadly I think the court system will become even more clogged, and therefore there are going to have be more alternatives.
But what we do know is that mediation unfortunately hasn’t been terribly successful. It seems that if as soon as you tell people they need to mediate, they go the other way. Collaborative law has taken off in certain areas but not all. Arbitration hasn’t really taken off and the private FDRs haven’t seemed to take off either. So the question is, are they going to be the way of the future if the courts totally grind to a halt? I suspect they may be. But I think from our experience, what will happen is that there will be more and more meetings between solicitors to try and resolve cases, which has got to be a good thing.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Yes, we only get to hear in the media about the cases where people fight to the death. But the reality is that the majority of cases do not go to court, but settle on sensible terms. I think that far more needs to be said in the media about the fact that divorce lawyers are generally doing an amazing job in putting people on the path to their new life. I think that perhaps there should be much more emphasis within the legal profession of our silent successes. LM
contact: vanessa Lloyd Platt
Lloyd Platt & Co 3rd Floor, Elscot House Arcadia Avenue London N3 2JU
Tel: 0208 343 2998 Fax: 0208 343 4950 Email: lloydplatt@divorcesolicitors.com Website: www.divorcesolicitors.com
The majority of cases do
not go to court, but settle on sensible terms.