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Family Law

Anglia DNA Services Ltd is a specialist laboratory for paternity and family relationship testing, offering a tailored service through case by case management, sample collection services and express services (from 8 hours) for all legal purposes such as Family Law, Immigration and Probate. Accredited to ISO 17025 International Standard and by the Ministry of Justice to carry out parentage tests.

• CAFCASS (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Services) was created by the Criminal Justice and Courts Services Act 2000. The site covers questions which could be taken to family courts, e.g.:
  * when parents who are separating or divorcing can't agree on arrangements for their children
  * an adoption application
  * when children are subject to an application for care or supervision proceedings by Social Services
  and provides answers to these types of questions for three groups of people - children, teenages, and adults. There is also a basic explanation of the law about children.
• Jordans Family Law Newswatch is a free service from Jordans providing the latest family law news, cases and legisation plus abstracts of key articles and commentary from the Jordans Family Law journals. You can sign up for a free email alert of the latest news stories. (From the Jordans Family Law Home page you can also sign up for a free trial of one of their online services.)
• Family Law Week is an important free site for family lawyers, covering developments in divorce, ancillary relief, private child law, public child law and cohabitation. (You have to register, but it is free). Each week, there is:
  * news, covering consultations, policy announcements and reports.
  * cases, with the latest publicly available judgments from Casetrack, Court Service and Bailli. For significant cases, there is a digest with the full text of the judgment. Where a case significantly alters family law and practice, there is a commentary highlighting the impact that the case will have.
  * articles from leading family law writers.
  * legislation, with details of all new SIs, together with a link to the full text of the legislation; progress of Bills is tracked.
  * resources, with useful links and documents such as updated Family Proceedings Fees.
  * a "print ready" issue of Family Law Week can be downloaded from the site (also free) * CPD is available at a very modest price.
• The Official Solicitor provides representation for minors or adults under legal disability, in county court or High Court proceedings in England and Wales, and in the Court of Protection. The site covers many topics relating to children.
• The Children's Legal Centre is an independent national charity concerned with law and policy affecting children and young people. There is a free and confidential legal advice and information service, covering all aspects of the law affecting children and young people, and a unit providing legal advice and representation to children and/or parents with concerns relating to schools or Local Education Authorities (LEAs). The centre also campaigns for children's rights in accordance with the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and also monitors the impact of armed conflict on civilian children. The Centre is based at Essex University.
• Advice on Individual Rights in Europe (AIRE) is an organisation based in London but with a Europe-wide remit and funding from the EU (as part of the EUROJUS network) and other public bodies. It provides information and advice throughout Europe on international human rights law, including the rights of individuals under the provisions of European Community Law; it has a special emphasis on ECHR materials on Family Law. The organisation also provides direct legal advice and assistance on a case by case basis to individuals, or to the lawyers who represent them, and, where appropriate, direct representation before international tribunals.
• 4 Brick Court has an established reputation in Family Law and Immigration, Crime, Common Law, Employment and Licensing. There are a large number of articles on family law on the site and a monthly "update" on family law with summaries of recent cases, articles etc. One of the barristers, Jacqui Gilliatt has set up a blog on UK family law called Bloody relations ("Where there's a relative there's a bloody good argument to be had"). The site is also associated with a wiki called familylawfaqs which is still in its early stages and calling for others to contribute their knowledge as well as the original authors.
• Family Law Matters is a blog from Jo Spain of Spain Williams. The blog contains articles, information and news on many areas of Family Law.
• Family Lore - Random thoughts of a family lawyer is a blog from John Bolch of Winch & Winch, Chatham and Snodland, Kent. It provides a useful set of updates for family lawyers.
• Bradshaw Dixon Moore provides actuarially-based professional services to solicitors and other legal advisors relating to pensions and pension valuations. As well as paid products, there is a free calculator on the site to determine the typical value of total pension assets for an individual based on their age, current earnings and years in pensionable employment. There are a number of other downloads relating to how pensions are split in divorce.
• Garden Court Chambers have created a bank of specialist legal resources relevant to their practice areas including Family Legal Resources (take "Resources" and then "Legal Resources"). Within each of these legal areas, they have then set up around a dozen sub topics where they have located cases, relevant legislation and useful links. The areas they cover under Family are Adoption, Ancillary Relief, Applications under the Family Law Act 1996, Child Abuse, Child Abduction, Civil Partnership, Domestic Violence, Immigration & Family issues, Public Interest Immunity, Public Law Children Act 1989 and Private Law Children Act 1989.
• ACAL (Association of Child Abuse Lawyers) provides a "News" page with information on recent cases and also a set of links to related web sites. There is a Newsletter, a training programme and a members' area.
• Getting your Get is a free online booklet, providing information for Jewish men and women in England, Wales and Scotland about divorce according to Jewish law. The booklet, written by solicitors Sharon Faith and Deanna Levine, also contains articles, forms and information for lawyers with divorcing Jewish clients. It has been favourably reviewed by Her Honour Judge Dawn Freedman. The booklet is in pdf format and can be downloaded from the site.
• Families Action for Court Transparency and Openness (FACTO) is a pressure group of families, lawyers, academics, MPs and journalists which campaigns to end family court secrecy. Aims include promoting the best interests of children by ending secrecy in the family courts and bringing about better understanding of the family courts by allowing information about cases heard by them to be made public. A key person behind the site is Sarah Harman of Harman & Harman, of Canterbury, who was suspended from practice for 3 months for releasing information on a childcare case to her sister, Harriet Harman, the Solicitor-General. There are articles on this general topic on the site.
• David Hodson, international divorce lawyer, provides articles and resources for family lawyers including information related to ADR and the Brussels conventions.
• Pearl Willis, a barrister, provides recent cases and commentary on Family and Child Care cases.
• The Child Support Agency.
• International Family Law Chambers - London, offer information on divorce in several countries, articles and papers on international divorce and family law by David Truex and an extensive set of links in this general area.
• International Divorce Law Office offers information about divorce in many different countries on the site and the firm offers legal services to people and lawyers around the world.
• Manches provides detailed information on topics like tax, financial orders, pensions splitting, the Hague Convention relating to children's custody, forum shopping, pre-nuptuals, co-habitation, human rights and generally topics far removed from 95% of "normal" divorces. There is information on relevant statues, and the site could be a good resource for solicitors meeting slightly more unusual situations as well as people divorcing.
• The UK College of Family Mediators sets standards for family mediation and maintains a register of family mediator members who meet those standards; it works to promote best practice in family mediation and to protect the public. The site provides a list of members and various forms, codes of practice and policies.
• Sharing Pensions is a very informative site site focused on the division of pension rights resulting from UK divorce. The website is an independent financial advisers (IFA) view, providing information for family lawyers, their clients, individuals involved in marriage breakdown and divorce, pension scheme managers and those with an interest in retirement planning. The site includes an extensive glossary explaining terms found in marriage breakdown and retirement planning and also offers a valuation service from IFA pension experts.
• Regentunited provide support services and online services to matrimonial solicitors with regards Pensions and Divorce. They produce low cost valuation reports for pensions and divorce as a result of the changes in ligislation with regards pension sharing that came in to force December 2000.

Food Law

• Food Law Pages from the Department of Food Science & Technology at the University of Reading
  

Freedom of Information

• Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force on 1st January 2005.
• Freedom of Information Resources from the Directgov site.
• Information Commissioner (previously the Data Protection Commissioner) continues to enforce the Data Protection Act 1998, and is now also responsible for Freedom of Information.
• Freedom of Information Journal is the UK’s only subscription based professional FOI journal. It provides practical articles written by the UK's leading FOI experts and practitioners as well as compliance advice, news items and analyses of the latest FOI decisions from the Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal. A free sample journal can be requested from the publisher. You can also sign up for free regular email updates on practical FOI compliance issues.
• Act Now describes itself as "The complete Data Protection resource for the Public Sector". It also covers Freedom of Information topics, particularly as related to public bodies and the Publication Scheme required by public bodies. There are links and articles and a free newsletter. Run by Ibrahim Hasan, Solicitor and Trainer, and expert in Freedom of Information, Data Protection, Surveillance Law, Information Sharing, Privacy and Human Rights, there is also a monthly series of podcasts here on the latest developments in Freedom of Information law. The podcast discusses recent decisions from the Information Commissioner's Office and the Information Tribunal and their impact on FOI practice.
• The FOI Act 2000 relating to the Public Sector is a site prepared by a company called Public Partners, which includes information and developments in freedom of Information, Environmental Information Regulations, Data Protection, and related timetables and events, designed particularly for the public sector.
• Freedom of Information Act provides "news, views and updates on the UK Freedom of Information Act and worldwide". The blog is prepared by Steve Wood who lectures in Information Management at Liverpool John Moores University.

  See also Data Protection and Privacy

Government and the Courts, and including Legal Aid

• Directgov is the overall Governnment site (replacing the previous government site, ukonline.) There are several sections on the site.
  • The left hand section describes the general topics covered - Britons abroad, Businesses, Employment and so on. Some of these sections link to other government sites, for example "Businesses" goes to the Business Link site which is managed by the DTI and includes information on finance, grants, employment and health and safety.
  • The middle section provides a number of useful directories of central government and local government. There are also a series of popular forms provided in pdf form. These include maternity benefits, lost or stolen passports, tax credits, back to work, child benefit, community care grant, off road notification, student grant and incapacity benefit.
  • The "Do It Online" section includes searching for childcare, finding a job, making a planning application, preparing a tax return online, claiming various allowances and tax credits and booking a driving test. This is one of the most important sections of the site. One successful feature of this section is a claims recovery facility called MCOL (Money Claim Online) provided by the Court Service. There is also a section called "Crime, Law, Justice, Rights" which includes Report a Minor Crime, Find a Legal advisor (which links to the Community Legal Service Direct site), Become a Prison Visitor, Join the Police Force, Join the Specials and the Money Claim Online site.
  • At the top of the main page is a simple search process (just type in the words e.g. income tax) and also an advanced search which allows words to be combined in various ways and also enables you to narrow down the process before you start, e.g. Central Government, Local Government, finding your MP, local Services etc.
• The Government News Network is the regional arm of Government communications and serves the English Regions, Scotland and Wales. They support Government Departments in Whitehall and elsewhere and Government Offices for the Regions in their co-ordination and policy delivery programmes and issue government news releases and media information.
• The Legal Secretariat to the Law Officers support the Attorney General and the Solicitor General. The Attorney General has overall responsibility for The Treasury Solicitor's Department, superintends the Director of Public Prosecutions as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland and the Director of the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO). The Law Officers answer for these Departments in Parliament. The Attorney General and the Solicitor General also deal with questions of law arising on Government Bills and with issues of legal policy. They are concerned with all major international and domestic litigation involving the Government and questions of European Community and International Law as they may affect Her Majesty's Government. The site has reports and responses to current issues including, for example, the final report of the Fraud Review with a Package Of Measures To Reduce Fraud, lists of unduly lenient sentences and the Attorney General's advice (from 2003) to the Government on Iraq.
• Government Forum is the latest online information source and virtual exhibition on e-government and the drive towards electronic service delivery. The site includes news, strategy papers, reports, rankings of sites, suppliers of IT and consultancy services, and links to central government departments and agencies that play an active part in helping local and central government achieve its modernisation programmes.
• The Free Representation Unit (FRU) is a charity that provides legal advice, case preparation and advocacy in employment, social security, some immigration and criminal injury compensation tribunal cases. The people who are able to take advantage of this are those who could not otherwise obtain legal support for want of personal means and public funding. To provide the service they train volunteer law students and legal professionals in the early stages of their career in the skills required to give confident and competent support for the rights of others. There are about 270 volunteer representatives active in any year.
• Local e-Government from The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) gives news and progress reports on how local government is developing its online services together with strategy statements as to what local government should be doing. It also provides provides tools and common procedures ("resource packs") which can help them. A separate site called Local e-gov National Projects gives details of 22 National Projects in this area as examples of good practice which others can follow.
• Government Gateway is a centralised registration service for e-Government services in the UK which allows you to sign up for any of the Government's services that are available over the Internet for example, Self Assessment, PAYE Internet Services for Employers and Electronic VAT Returns. You are provided with a User ID and a digital certificate which then enables you to send and receive forms, such as Tax returns and VAT returns without having to enter your personal details every time.
• The Home Office provides a vast array of reports and links to other related bodies, e.g. police, prisons, immigration, data protection and research and statistics. There is a subject index and a searching mechanism.
• The Central Office of Information (COI) provides all the government's press releases, organised by Department and by date.
• Help is at Hand provides information on all kinds of initiatives in the provision of online government resources. It is run by an organisation called Becta (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency). A section of particular interest is e-gov news which covers e-Government in all its forms.
• Her Majesty's Courts Service has separate sections for "Using the Courts" (for ordinary viewers), "Legal/Professional", and "About Us". The Legal/Professional section includes the Supreme Court Daily Lists, Selected Judgments (selected by the judge as being significant), Minimum Terms & Tariffs, Practice Directions, Court Forms (which can be completed and in some cases submitted online) and a What's New section. The judgments are given in date order (most recent first) but can also be searched by keywords.
• Judiciary of England and Wales is the website of the judges, magistrates and tribunal members in England and Wales. It is not part of Government, MoJ or Parliament but prides itself on being strictly independent. The site is designed as an information resource for members of the public and covers the functions of the judiciary with information on who the judges are, when they site, judgments, sentencing, practice directions and many related topics, together with news of current issues, news items and reports. There are interviews, surveys and even a quiz.
• Money Claim Online (MCOL) enables people to issue a claim via the internet for a fixed sum under £100,000. There is a fee of £27 minimum and the claimant fills in a number of screens online to set up the claim. The service also enables a claimant to enter judgment, file an acknowledgement of service or defence and apply for a warrant of execution, online.
• Possession Claim Online (PCOL) is a new service provided by Her Majesty's Courts Service for claims in County Courts for residential property brought by a landlord against a tenant, solely on the ground of arrears of rent (but not a claim for forfeiture of a lease) or a mortgagee against a mortgagor, solely on the ground of default in the payment of sums due under a mortgage. In other words, the site allows for straightforward claims with no extra complications but if the various conditions apply, the claim can be launched online and also defended online. Fees are paid by credit card online. These systems can be used by solicitors processing multiple claims as well as individuals.
• Telephone Hearings is a site about the new telephone hearing scheme for the Country Courts. The nationwide rollout of the scheme commenced in April this year although there had previously been pilot schemes in Bedford, Luton and Newcastle. The site explains the background to the scheme and provides guidance for court users, a list of the courts already taking part, and information on how to book a telephone hearing. The site is provided by LegalConnect, the leading provider of conference call services and virtual meeting room solutions to lawyers in the UK.
• Civil Appeals is a site provided by the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), designed to provide online information and services for civil appeals. Information includes:
  • An interactive guide to routes of appeal, to help litigants and practitioners identify the correct court to which their appeal lies;
  • A link to the most recent judgments of the Court;
  • A link to the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) site, which publishes all the Court’s substantive judgments as soon as they are available in written form and also contains most of these going back to May 1996;
  • The lists of leading cases published in the 2002-3 and 2003-4 Reviews of the Court, with links to the text of the judgments;
  • Links to relevant Civil Procedure rules and practice directions;
  • The Daily List for the Court (of cases coming before it);
  • A list of the judges and senior staff of the Court, with short biographical notes;
  • Contact details for the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) and information about the Civil Appeals office which supports the Court.
• Tribunals Service is a government agency which provides common administrative support to the main central government tribunals. You can find particular tribunals from here.
• The Council on Tribunals with information about the membership and work of the Council and its Scottish Committee, the text of recent annual and special reports that it has published, and information about the large and diverse world of tribunals in England, Wales and Scotland. There is also a list of tribunals and bodies related to tribunals on the links page.
• Northern Ireland Office deals in particular with political and constitutional matters as they relate to Northern Ireland as well as law & order, policing and criminal justice policy and community relations.
• The Northern Ireland Court Service was established in 1979, by the Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978, as a separate civil service in Northern Ireland. The Court Service reports to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. There are selected Judgments and Practice Directions on the site.
• Scottish Office is responsible for those functions of government which are separately administered in Scotland.
• Scottish Courts Web Site provides information relating to all civil and criminal courts within Scotland, including the Court of Session, the High Court of Justiciary, the Sheriff Courts and a number of other courts, commissions and tribunals as well the District Courts.
• The Foreign and Commonwealth Office provides information on all foreign briefings and statements.
• The Crown Prosecution Service is responsible for prosecuting people in England and Wales charged by the police with a criminal offence.
• The Coroners' Law Resource,created by Paul Matthews, of the School of Law, King's College, London, are intended to assist both the non-lawyer and the lawyer on this topic. The site includes relevant legislation and a noter-up to one of the standard textbooks on coroners' law (Paul Matthews' own book).
• The Law Commission provides details of law currently being reviewed under categories of Common Law, Company & Commercial Law, Criminal Law, Property & Trust Law and Statute Law.
• UK Official Publications - complete catalogue of all official publications including both Stationery Office publications and departmental or "non-Stationery Office" publications.
• The Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court with information for members of the public and for lawyers.
• The Legal Service Commission is an executive non-departmental public body created under the Access to Justice Act 1999 to replace the Legal Aid Board. It is responsible for the development and administration of two schemes in England and Wales:
  • The Community Legal Service, which from 1st April 2000 replaced the old civil scheme of legal aid, bringing together networks of funders (eg Local Authorities) and suppliers into partnerships to provide the widest possible access to information and advice.
  • The Criminal Defence Service which from 2nd April 2001 replaced the old system of criminal legal aid and provides criminal services to people accused of crimes.
  The Legal Services Commission will only pay solicitors and other organisations to provide help if they can meet certain standards. Organisations which have met the Commission's standards will display the Community Legal Service Quality Mark or CDS logo.
• The Legal Aid Practitioners Group represents over 600 firms of High Street Solicitors, committed to legal aid work. There is news on legal aid developments and information on lobbying, meetings and events.
• Independent Lawyer is a subscription magazine for legal aid solicitors and barristers. It covers news of regulatory changes, key legal aid decisions and emerging areas of practice. It also provides a databank of essential practice information, a legal aid surgery, profiles of legal aid practices and book reviews
• Legal Services Research Centre (LSRC), formerly the Legal Aid Board Research Unit (LABRU), is the research division of the Legal Services Commission (LSC). It was set up in 1996 to inform legal aid policy and the implementation of reform. It has a broad remit to conduct strategic research in the civil and criminal justice fields.
• The new Legal Aid Board Forms use HotDocs, automatic forms and precedent generation software from Capsoft, which ask a series of questions, then remember the answers, removing the need to re-key the same information into later LAB forms. The forms will apparently be kept updated and have Law Society backing. To use the forms you need to download some (free) "HotDocs Player" software from this site.
• The UK Central Government Web Archive is a selective collection of UK Government websites, archived from August 2003. Sites already being "harvested" once a week include The Hutton Inquiry, the Prime Minister's Office, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and the forces. Another 40 will shortly be harvested every 6 months. The site is free to use and can be easily navigated, for example the web address
  http://crawl04.archive.org/ukgov/20030910195540/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/
  indicates the date and the site being archived.
  Meanwhile the Legal Deposit Libraries bill is working its way through Parliament and will eventually mean that major online publications are also put "on deposit" in the same way as printed publications have already been, since 1911.

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