Raleys Solicitors

Baroness Deech, a leading UK family lawyer who is also the chairman of the Bar Standards Board is expected to speak this week in a lunchtime lecture about the concept of marriage within English law and whether it is clear, relevant and up-to-date.

Baroness Deech is expected to argue that the English law’s concept of marriage, “the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others” is heavily based on traditional Christian values and that recent changes to family law and conventional family life have made this description less relevant than ever.

The basis of Lady Deech’s argument is that as recently as fifty years ago, homosexuality itself was still illegal whereas nowadays same sex couples have the right to hold civil unions which are closely comprable to marriage, adopt children, be named on the birth certificates of children born through artificial insemination and may soon be allowed to hold civil unions in religious buildings.

The accuracy and relevancy of English law’s concept of marriage has not only be called into question by society’s increasing acceptance of homosexuality, but also by other shifting social attitudes. Whilst same sex civil unions negated the ‘between one man and one woman’ part, relaxing attitudes to adultery have called into question the ‘one‘ part.

Similarly, the fact that few people bat an eyelid about divorce and that it is so easy to obtain these days has rather put a question mark over the ‘lifelong‘ part too. So Baroness Deech’s view that changing family law has resulted in the law’s concept of marriage becoming inaccurate has a pretty sound basis.

Marriage is more different and less practised today than ever before. Attitudes and lifestyles have changed. As Baroness Deech puts it, ” religion is a waning force, women have financial independence, there is state support for lone parents, children are no longer classified as illegitimate, divorce is easy and there is no recrimination over sex and birth outside of wedlock,” so perhaps the legal definition of marriage should come up for review.

You can read the full story here. We’d love to know your views.

The number of family law disputes involving children in January 2010 was up 32% on figures the same month in 2009, a leading divorce advisory service has said.

Divorce.co.uk and other divorce advisory services have pointed out that there is normally a sharp increase in cases of child custody, divorce and child support disputes in the couple of months following the stressful Christmas and New Year period, but that this increase is above average.

Family law disputes following children typically increase shortly after Christmas because of the pressures that the festive season puts on families. Many separated parents try to increase the amount of time they spend with their child over the school holidays and this can often lead to resentment by the other parent.

The recession and money worries have also contributed to the rising family law disputes. It is claimed that extra spending at Christmas leads to resident parents feeling justified in asking the other parent for increased child support. This often leads to arguments.

Family law disputes are distressing at any time of year and at Raleys Solicitors we pride ourselves on our understanding approach to your dispute. However, we also recommend that anyone who is divorcing or embroiled in a family law dispute visits http://www.divorce.co.uk for divorce advice.

Many a tabloid story has told us in excruciating detail the legally and morally questionable tricks employed by the super rich when divorcing to save their fortunes from their ex-spouses, but we rarely hear about actual legal loopholes used, maliciously or otherwise in divorces. Well that’s because they don’t happen so often, but people should be sure to seek legal advice from a well qualified family law solicitor when divorcing to avoid losing out due to legal loopholes.

Let’s take a recent high profile example of a divorcing couple that has appeared in the news and cut their long story short. The middle aged couple were British, had married in the UK but now lived in France following the husband’s long and successful business career. When the wife discovered her husband had been having an affair, she filed for divorce.

It’s not clear whether she tried to file for divorce in the UK first, but either way a couple must have been resident in the UK for twelve months before filing for divorce here, so it wouldn’t have been an option. The story ended with her filing for divorce in the French courts, meaning that her husband’s UK based pension worth over £1m was never taken into account. Add that to the fact that few other countries’ courts look as favourably on women as UK courts do and she was left with a significantly smaller divorce payout than she would have had she divorced in the UK.

The moral of the story is to know your rights, consulting a family law solicitor is the only way to guarantee you do not miss any loopholes which may alter the outcome of the proceedings.

Divorce is never a nice experience, even when the decision to end a marriage is mutual. However there are episodes in some famous divorce cases when dirty tricks have been used by the lawyers and one or both spouses in order to get the upper hand. The famous chef Marco Pierre White  separated from his wife after seven years of marriage. During the divorce case, White claims that his wife and her team of lawyers intercepted his mail and personal documents in an attempt to gain information about his finances. The chef is now taking the divorce lawyers to court so that he can sue them for these dirty tricks.

For more information on this case you can read an interesting article in the London Evening Standard. Click here to read it.

But remember, not all divorce lawyers will stoop to such levels in order to get results for their client. Every solicitor at Raleys prides themselves on integrity, skill and a knowledge of the law so that these tricks are not needed anyway.

More and more couples are going down the path of the quickie divorce in order to end their marriage as speedily as possible. This new phenomenon which was rare five to ten years ago has been blamed on the celebrity fashion to split up and divorce within a matter of days, not months. And expert relationship councillors and lawyers have lambasted the trend for quick divorces as a waste of money and often psychologically and emotionally damaging.

It would be wrong to say that every couple that tie the knot should never be allowed to divorce no matter how bad their marriage is, sometimes the truth is that no matter how hard you try, two people’s differences cannot be reconciled. However, there is a high number of couples that decide to get a quickie divorce only to realise that they made a mistake and would prefer to talk through their problems, fix them and stay together.

Many notable family  lawyers have had clients that have paid thousands of pounds to divorce before they have even sat down and talked through the reasons behind one party or both involved wanting to get out of the marriage. On many occasions it is simply a case of airing your issues, being listened to and changing your actions so that you can get on with your lives together, happily again.

But this kind of action should be done before the divorce is granted. Your family lawyer should advise you to seek marriage counselling or at least help you to talk to each other before you go to court. Through this process you might find that you would like to give your marriage another go. And if one party is still determined on a divorce, at least it helps the other to understand why their partner is leaving them.

When celebrities can announce their split to the national media and be divorced less than a month later, it does not exactly help to concrete the belief that marriage is for life, ’til death us do part’. With such a casual approach to their personal lives, celebrities are often seen to go off the rails after their divorce, neglecting their children, rebounding with any Tom, Dick or Sally (Because it is both men and women that act like this) and generally portraying bad behaviour. This has led to a more casual approach in society’s view of marriage, and makes divorce a signature on a piece of paper, not an emotional struggle that is difficult for all parties involved.