10 OPINION


www.lawgazette.co.uk Computer update


Solicitors are schooled in scepticism


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As officers of the court we have a duty to help litigants in person, says Lucy Reed


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hen it is suggested that lawyers need to improve their ancillary skills – marketing, business development, use of social media – the response is mixed. Solicitors who have


worked hard at law’s core professional skills and knowledge are hard-pushed to see why this is not sufficient to thrive. That each ancillary skill comes with a list of comparatively insubstantial jargon is unhelpful – solicitors are schooled in scepticism. Joining that list of non-law skills, as Gazette colum- nist Joanna Goodman relates (p8) is ‘Legal IT’, which


is set to make an appearance in some US law schools. Leading the debate on IT’s place in the law is a client. Kia Motors corporate counsel D Casey Flaherty set law firms seeking selection as Kia’s external counsel an IT competence test – which all of them failed. It is worth seeing this from the client’s point of


view. Clients, corporate or individual, are not asking that lawyers learn to write computer programs. Nei- ther are they hell-bent on asking for a ‘commoditised’ product that undermines professionalism. Instead, clients are asking their legal advisers to mirror the way they go about their own business. Used well, technology is about simplifying life, thereby freeing us all up to focus on the clever professional things that add value.


23 June 2014


‘Awkward squad’ no longer


started producing materi- als for litigants in person (LiPs) involved in family cases in 2009, before LASPO was a twinkle in the ministerial eye. Then most cases involving a LiP also involved at least


one lawyer. LiPs were generally perceived as an occasional irritant; a barrier to the smooth operation of the legal process. Well, now we’re in the minority, at least in private law children and ‘small money’ financial remedy work. Ironically, because LASPO has


levelled matters in low-income families by removing legal aid from both parents (unless one falls within the domestic violence or other limited categories), the family lawyer directly encounters LIPs infrequently even now. But their presence and effect is pervasive: in court listing delays, in the ineffi- cient operation of block lists, in the weariness of the judiciary, and in the ever-increasing reliance of judges on counsel or solicitor-advocates to pick up the slack whenever they are involved, in the publication of the Child Arrangements Programme and accompanying templates. In March, I spent a day at Bristol


Civil Justice Centre with a team of volunteers filming a series of basic guidance videos for LiPs. My friend Dave played the role of the LiP. He is not a lawyer. Although there is no dialogue, we asked him to role-play, asking the judge for contact with his


(fictional) son so we could use the footage and add a voiceover. He told me that simply being in the


courtroom was intimidating. I believe him. I have been a LiP myself (long story, but not family proceedings) and even as a practising lawyer I was a wreck. There was a profound sense of being under attack as a person. There is something about speak-


ing up that is infinitely harder when it is your life you are defending. In the family court, privacy is violated, choices made during moments of pain and sadness are scrutinised coldly, and one’s personality is unpicked and criticised. LiPs who end up in the family


court have lost one or more of: their partner; children; home; and finan- cial stability. What they have not yet lost, they fear losing. Is it any won- der they are sometimes less than calm, clear, methodical or polite? LiPs do not care what we call the


court. They are not likely to have read and digested the 37 parts of the Family Procedure Rules and the 74 practice directions. They will not have read and digested any one of the president’s ‘views’ or his guidance notes. They will not have access to any consolidated version of the Children Act 1989. Apart from what they can find on the internet (good, bad and ugly), most arrive at court with no real frame of refer- ence, language or tools to be able to successfully engage, get results and survive the process emotionally. LiPs are just like our clients – but


without lawyers to explain the law and procedure, tell them when their position is crackers, refer them to mediation, respond calmly to upset- ting letters, manage their expecta- tions, explain their position to the judge – and so on. In the past, when a good propor-


tion of LiPs had chosen to represent themselves, the notion of LiPs as the ‘awkward squad’ might have had some validity. Not now. The problem lies not with LiPs but with the absence of accessible support and advice. To be accessible in any mean- ingful sense, information needs to be easily accessed, affordable, and simple to understand and apply. The solution to these profound


difficulties does not lie in the hands of either the legal profession or the judiciary, but a broader community of professionals committed to access to justice. We have an obligation to do our best to help make it less bad for those the system exists to help. There is no complete substitute


for sound legal advice and rep- resentation. However, we must help disseminate information and signpost LiPs to reliable sources of information which also incorporate an element of expectation manage- ment. This is the single most impor- tant thing we can do as officers of the court.


Lucy Reed is a family law specialist at St John’s Chambers, London, and author of The Family Court without A Lawyer (Bath Publishing, £30)


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