Deborah Jeff2013-06-19T21:53:51-04:00Deborah Jeffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=deborah-jeffCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Deborah JeffGood old fashioned elbow grease.How to Keep Divorce Costs Downtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31910102013-05-01T07:28:43-04:002013-05-02T17:36:03-04:00Deborah Jeffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jeff/Divorce: nasty battles, in-fighting... watching friends or family members going through divorce paints an unenviable emotional, as well as an often expensive financial picture.
What's more, spiralling costs and poor-quality legal services are compounding the process of divorce...
Earlier this year, findings by the law watchdog, the Legal Ombudsman for England and Wales, showed complaints by the clients of legal firms in divorce and family law cases were far higher than in any other category, with 13% of clients reporting they were dissatisfied with their lawyers. Eighteen per cent of those complaints were of failure to provide adequate service.
And an impending rise in the numbers of divorcing couples having to pay for their own legal representation will undoubtedly see such figures balloon.
As of April, legal aid has been cut, meaning 200,000 couples going through divorce each year - who would previously have received public funding for their legal fees - will no longer get it.
Rising tensions
Many married couples have been put off starting divorce proceedings, in the recession, due to the costs involved. They are alternatively separating or even still living in the same house together because they can't face the cost of the legal battle.
Couples who agree all aspects to a split can reduce legal costs on divorce significantly, but add any contested aspects to the grounds for divorce, or introduce fears over future maintenance for childcare or suspicion that a spouse has offshore assets or hidden wealth, and the legal fees start mounting.
"My job is to use the mediation approach wherever appropriate, to avoid all the heartache, avoid the legal costs and keep stress levels to a minimum."
Divorcing couples can end up with large bills because of other factors, too.
Typically, the temperature is higher than it needs to be. The parties involved are likely not communicating at their best, bearing in mind the situation in which they find themselves. It could also be because one particular party is acting out of emotion rather that logic.
In my experience, about 90% of cases tend to settle before any final hearing. So it is the exception rather than the rule that they go to a final hearing after about a year's worth of litigation or more.
Where people are upset by unexpectedly big legal bills at the end is often because of a lack of management by their solicitors, because they did not give the client clear cost estimates at the beginning. Regularly reviewing costs when extra work is required over matters that could not have been predicted at the outset is also helpful for the client.
There is an element too of emotions running so high that clients cannot understand sometimes what they are told regarding costs, or don't fully understand that the more time they spend with their lawyer, the greater their bill will be. For solicitors, it's imperative in this case that they update clients, even if it is simply to say the initial costs estimate is still accurate.
Long haul
Many couples don't realise when they begin getting divorced, that it is just simply the start of a process, rather than the end. While the marriage may be over, the commencement of divorce proceedings mark the start of a structured procedure that can take months, sometimes even years, to finalise.
It is however possible to speed through this process, where a spouse settles early because they're convinced it's just not worth the fight or the couple are able to come to an amicable agreement, where all the information required is brought, readily, to the table.
At the opposite end of the scale, if a client instructs family lawyers who specialise just in family work, those lawyers will be abiding by a code of practice that means they must seek to bring the temperature down as part of their duty to the client.
We have to recommend ways in which we can do this. One of those ways is sending the parties to mediation, where appropriate, so they sit down with a completely neutral third party, look at the options in terms of settlement, and come to an agreement that avoids them having to go to court. That's a very good way of bringing the cost down.
Mediators are usually trained family lawyers - a bit like myself - but they are there in a different capacity, and not as the legal advisor for either party. They know what is likely to happen for those clients if the case goes to court. And they will know the best and worse-case scenarios. Armed with that knowledge, they can guide the parties towards what is likely to be the best outcome for them.
If a mediator can foresee what a judge is likely to rule, you might wonder why couples don't just use them, and save on the rest of the legal fees. The answer to that is that the parties still need advice on whether the agreement they are considering entering into is in their best interests: then that agreement needs to be made binding, usually by a court order.
Battle lines
My job is to use the mediation approach wherever appropriate, so as to avoid all the heartache, avoid the legal costs and keep stress levels to a minimum for a client.
It is feasible to get divorced without ever seeing a lawyer, however, and the divorce process itself in this case, is quite straightforward. When you hear of parties talking about a very protracted divorce, they're usually talking about the financial settlement and not about the process.
What complicates this process and brings lawyers in is usually either over finances or when there are children involved. Sometimes exceptionally, couples will fight about both. But if there is money to argue over, they'll do that. If there's no money, fighting tends to occur over the children.
People assume when there isn't much to share, there's less to argue about. But when people are on very low incomes and there's very little equity in the house or if there is no property at all, when every single penny counts, divorce can get as equally bitter as it can when there are millions at stake.
This is largely because a settlement in this case can seem extremely unfair to the party who isn't living with the children, because the court will generally decide those cases are what's called 'needs-based'. So the needs of the children will be right at the top of the list in the settlement. And that quite often means the party who does have the children living with them is going to get a more generous financial settlement, particularly in terms of capital, because the children will simply need housing.
Sex split
Often we hear men saying they ended up much poorer in a divorce, whether they lost their house to their ex-wife or do not have custody of their children, and that they've ended up with very little. But then statistics show that after divorce, women are often worse off and men are better off.
Correlating these two myths is difficult because they are ostensibly about two different things. Regarding the financial settlement, it can quite often be the case that the parent who has the children living with them gets the better deal, particularly when it's a case where there's little money to go around. But women generally take longer to recover emotionally from the consequences of marriage breakdown.
The best advice I can provide, as a family lawyer, in terms of finances and the legalities, is first of all to keep communicating with each other, and this is where mediation can be so very helpful. The more you can talk about issues between yourselves rather than through your lawyers, the lower your costs will be.
The second important point is to find a lawyer who specialises in family law and abides by the code of practice, which means they can't raise the temperature. Contrarily, we have to bring the temperature down wherever we possibly can.
And thirdly, consider some alternative means of mediation. So rather than running to court, let's look at having a round table meeting, rather than sending correspondence backwards and forwards and initiating litigation that might be unnecessary.
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Deborah Jeff is a London divorce lawyer and the Head of Family at Seddons solicitors. She provides expert advice on divorce, family law and marital issues.]]>Shared Parenting, Post-Separation: A Subtle but Powerful Change in the Lawtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21700162012-11-21T06:56:32-05:002013-01-21T05:12:01-05:00Deborah Jeffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jeff/
In recent history, many children have made their main home with their mother after their parents' separation. This reflected society's views that a woman's place was at home raising the family whilst her husband (now 'partner') worked to financially support the family.
After separation, these primary roles often remain largely unchanged save for mother's often needing to work to support themselves and the children. But like any system, it was open to being abused.
Mothers could use their role as 'main carer' to manipulate the children's views of their father, and fathers could be sure of causing untold hurt to their children and inconvenience to their former wives and partners by changing plans to see the children or not showing up at all.
Society's views of which of the sexes should be homemaker or breadwinner are now very blurred. Anything goes.
It's now not unthinkable for a man to be a 'house-husband' whilst women are the major earner in the family. And family law is gradually catching up with those changing views.
With more fathers than ever now being very 'hands-on' in their children's upbringing when the couple are together, why should it be any different if the couple separates?
In June, the government began a consultation, '... inviting views on the Government's plans to introduce legislation to reinforce the principle that most children benefit from the ongoing involvement of both parents after separation'. Respondents were asked to consider the potential of four different approaches to promote post-separation shared parenting, and sought views on the impact of this legislation.
Overall, opinion was that a legal 'presumption' of shared parenting was the solution rather than a general 'principle' of shared parenting or 'involvement' of both parents.
As a London divorce lawyer, I have been supportive of the presumption of shared parenting since this was raised in the consultation announcement. There have been concerns by some that it will lead to children's welfare being impacted by the rights of parents ranking above the best interests of children but there is no foundation for such concern.
The new law will explain that the purpose of the change is '...to reinforce the importance of children having an ongoing relationship with both parents after family separation, where that is safe (my emphasis), and in the child's best interests'.
The change in the law is so very subtle, and the general 'checklist' of factors the court must apply when deciding any issue regarding a child will remain the same.
It is the starting point of a presumption of shared parenting that has a massive psychological impact on the parents; for the parent with whom the child spends greater time, it is a constant reminder that the other parent has an equal say in their upbringing. And for the parent with whom the child spends less time, it reassures them that their rights and responsibilities remain in place and are honoured.
It will also address the bias that is felt by one parent towards the other in disputes regarding children.
There have also been concerns that the 'shared parenting' presumption will mean children spending equal time with both parents but this is another legal myth.
Shared parenting can often mean two days a week with one parent and five with the other, but the description of this arrangement is where the advantage is to be found. Calling it 'shared care' is a constant reminder that these children are the product of both parents, not to be used to score points against an ex, not to be 'claimed' as belonging to one parent and not the other, and most definitely not to alienate the other parent.
This change has been a long time coming. I believe it will mean fewer children disputes as parents recognise and accept the new presumption, or disputes settled quickly and with fewer costs. Time will tell...
We now just await the date of when these legislative changes will be made.
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Top London divorce lawyer, Deborah Jeff, is the Founding Partner and Head of Family at Seddons solicitors, dealing with high-profile divorces. As a Family Lawyer, she specialises in such fields as prenuptial agreements, with the majority of her work concerning complex financial disputes within divorce.]]>Modernisation of the Family Justice System - Adjourned for Too Longtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18175462012-08-21T09:20:21-04:002012-10-21T05:12:12-04:00Deborah Jeffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jeff/
As a London divorce lawyer I have experienced firsthand how the current system often increases the costs and stress of those using the family courts.
Too often the courts lose files, take weeks to issue proceedings and generally cause chaos with the proceedings issued.
In the last year alone, I have been before District Judges who were downright embarrassed by the service the court was providing. Constantly having to chase the court for missing paperwork increases costs for clients and gives an appalling impression to those who start off by having faith in the family justice system.
Their stress levels are then increased as a result of the system in which they should be able to have complete faith...
On one occasion a clerk at the Family Division was not at all ashamed to tell me that they had lost the key to the locked room where several hundred files were kept and would we please provide copies of the client's file; an atrocious incident in a system which is overloaded and hires insufficient staff for the workload facing them.
The Family Justice Review was published in November 2011 and Mr Justice Ryder was appointed to provide a judicial response. Over the last nine months the judiciary have considered the Review and the Ryder and have now made their proposals for modernising the family justice system. It is now up to the Government and the court service to implement those proposals.
In simple terms, Mr Justice Ryder's proposals begin with the launch of a single Family Court arising from the Crime and Courts Bill currently before Parliament.
The intention is for this single court to replace and simplify the current system of County Court and Family Proceedings Court but the High Court will remain as it is. There will be a change of culture to "strong judicial leadership" rather than various judges dipping into a case at various hearings.
The changes will be made with two proposals: effective judicial case management to reduce delay and matching resources to need. Judicial case management will ensure delays are minimised, keeping costs down with fewer hearings and concluding the proceedings at the earliest.
Matching resources to need is extremely overdue; a simple example is telephone calls to the Court going unanswered for hours on end. Staff are often just not available to process paperwork. District Judges with knowledge of a case can be unavailable at the last moment and instead the case is heard by a judge with no former knowledge of the case.
Whilst how the changes are achieved may be fascinating to any Family Lawyer, all a client wants to know is "will my case be dealt with quickly and effectively?" It is hoped that the answer to that will be yes by the end of 2014.
The changes will be introduced in two phases, each of about a year. In Phase 1, the structural, leadership and management principles will be put into place so the new Court can be introduced at the end of 2013. Phase 2 will be in 2013-2014.
In the summer of 2014, the Children and Families Bill will be introduced. This is likely to limit care cases to 26 weeks and put into effect proposals for shared parenting, child arrangement orders and contact enforcement. The various options will be debated in the public domain and ultimately decided by Parliament.
The immediate challenge, however, before then is to ensure that those without legal advisors receive the assistance of the court.
With very few private children cases qualifying for public funding from April 2013 there are difficult times ahead and I wait curiously to see how this will be handled by the courts.
The Ryder proposals speak of a "robust framework to incorporate the new legislative framework and the recommendations of the judiciary" but with so many court users without legal advisors from next year, the system must be extremely robust and effective to process the applications of the public.
There is the promise of a "private law pathway" being published to describe what a court can and cannot do and how it does it to assist these court users acting without legal representation and the possibility of restrictions on the right of one party to cross-examine another.
The family court service has been in general decline over recent years and it is to be hoped that the Ryder proposals will see a change in culture. However, unless more resources are available to deal with the workload of the family court, I still see difficult times ahead.
In these times of budget cuts, I imagine that the availability of more salary costs will be zero and the Ryder proposals would then fall of stony ground.
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Top divorce lawyer, Deborah Jeff, is the Founding Partner and Head of Family at Seddons solicitors, dealing with high-profile divorces. She specialises in such fields as prenuptial agreements, with the majority of her work concerning complex financial disputes within divorce.]]>Changing the Law for Parents Denied Time With Their Childrentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16266802012-06-26T06:23:31-04:002012-08-26T05:12:05-04:00Deborah Jeffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jeff/
As a family lawyer, I have seen and heard just about every possible excuse from mothers and fathers of why the other parent should or shouldn't be allowed to spend time with their children post-separation.
This applies equally to couples who have lived together, never lived together or who were once married to each other.
There is often depicted in the media a stereotype mother who uses the children to score points against her former partner and maintain control of a war between them post-separation.
Equally, there is a certain type of father who arranges to spend time with his children and then fails to show up time and time again, causing untold hurt and rejection to the children and a mother whose plans must change immediately to look after the children.
My point is that there exist out there both mothers and fathers who play the court system and each other as it suits them, to score points off the other and involve the children in a game of power psychology between parents.
Often this is perpetrated by the parent with whom the children spend the greater amount of time after the separation. They tend to believe that they have a greater say in the children's lives and minimise the importance of the other parent in the children's upbringing.
The Government has listened to the recommendations made in the Family Justice Review of November 2011 and announced various reforms as a result. One of these is in relation to time children spend with both parents after separation.
The reforms acknowledge: 'the changing social trend of more fathers being involved in the upbringing of children. With it being more socially acceptable for women to work full-time after having children and men being house-husbands, more men than ever are being the "full-time" parent, i.e. the one with whom the children spend the greater part of their time; and 'that children generally tend to do better in life if both parents are involved in their lives, regardless of whether those parents live together. This is not a new discovery by any means and is already applied by the courts but the principle has been heightened by the recommendations of the Family Justice Review.'
The reforms proposed are subtle indeed and do not make major changes to the existing law.
Any parent who makes an application to the Court regarding contact with their child will be familiar with the Children Act 1989, which provides that the welfare of the child is paramount.
The court then determines what is in the best interests of the child by applying various factors known as the 'welfare checklist', such as: the age of the child, their emotional, physical and educational needs, whether the child is at risk of any harm and how capable each parent is of meeting the child's needs.
The Family Justice Review has warned against a presumption of "shared parenting" and the government has listened to that. What it proposes is one of four options, the first being a presumption that the welfare of a child is furthered by the involvement of both parents in the child's upbringing unless there is evidence to the contrary; the second, a general principle that the welfare of a child is furthered by the involvement of both parents in the child's upbringing unless there is evidence to the contrary, third: a starting point that the welfare of a child is furthered by the involvement of both parents in the child's upbringing unless there is evidence to the contrary; or fourthly that the welfare checklist is added to so that the court must consider the involvement of both parents amongst all the other factors of the child's circumstances.
To my mind, the "presumption" proposed in the first option is the most sensible. It will then be enshrined in law that the best interests of a child are generally met by the involvement of both parents in the child's upbringing and sends a very clear signal to any parent who has thoughts of game-playing in this manner.
But that is not to say that the presumption cannot be displaced. I have read reports that such amendments will make it harder to focus on child welfare or that the human rights of parents now rank above the best interests of a child. That is most certainly not the case and is just scaremongering by the media.
The court will retain the "paramountcy" principle of the child's welfare and, if it is clear that it is not in the best interests of a child to have both parents involved in their upbringing, they won't be. It's as simple as that.
And it is absolutely not about the children spending equal time with each parent. In effect, it doesn't change the law at all in terms of outcome. What it does is send a clear message to parents who want to use their role as the parent with whom the child is living to exclude and manipulate. The effect is therefore almost exclusively psychological. It is subtle but most likely to be very effective.
Another reform proposed is in relation to penalties for parents not complying with court orders.
It is often the case that a parent (often but not exclusively the mother) won't make a child available for contact simply because they don't agree with the decision. Time and time again the other parent has to take the matter back to court while the court gives the mother another warning or a chance to comply.
Finally, the court may attach a "penal notice" to the order, warning her that she faces prison if she doesn't comply but rarely is this used.
Ultimately, the court can transfer residence of the children to the other parent in such circumstances. But the process is slow, expensive and stressful.
What the government proposes is a series of enforcement actions against the parent defying the court order to ensure the child gets what is in their best interests. These sanctions include withholding of passports and driving licences or a curfew order requiring the parent to be at a given address between specified hours.
The intention is to ensure that equal enforcement actions are used to enforce court contact orders as are available to enforce child maintenance orders.
For many years, breaching a contact order has been seen by some mothers as of no consequence, but it is right that the court takes back the power and enforces its decision otherwise the process has no "teeth" at all.
The enforcement of contact orders has been terribly weak for so long.
I'm impressed that the coalition is listening to the findings of the Family Justice Review. But as someone who uses the family courts daily, their next focus should undoubtedly be tackling the backlog of work at the courts... otherwise their best efforts will fail in the slow, shoddy administration of our family courts and parents will continue to play the system.
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London divorce solicitor/divorce lawyer, Deborah Jeff, is the Founding Partner and Head of Family at Seddons solicitors, dealing with high-profile divorces. She has specialised as a Family Lawyer throughout her 17-year career, with the majority of her work concerning complex financial disputes within divorce.]]>Launch of The Marriage Foundation: If you want to talk to someone who is anti-divorce, talk to a divorce lawyertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14999682012-05-08T19:00:00-04:002012-07-08T05:12:08-04:00Deborah Jeffhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jeff/The Marriage Foundation at Middle Temple Hall on Monday. I had expected those invited to consist mostly of family lawyers but I couldn't have been more wrong...
It was refreshing to meet a range of professionals whose work in some way touches the lives of those who experience marriage breakdown, such as marriage counsellors, mental health professionals, youth workers and religious leaders as well as my legal peers.
Senior High Court Judge Sir Paul Coleridge, the foundation's founder, opened proceedings by explaining his reasons for establishing the foundation and its aims over the coming months. Its fundamental concern, he said, was family breakdown and its "destructive effects on the lives of children... We aim to reduce the number of children caught up in the family justice system and the misery which they experience," he added.
As family lawyers, we see this first-hand, and it is usually the children who are caught in the crossfire. However, Sir Paul explained that it is possible to have "healthier relationships that are less likely to break down" leading to benefits not just for the couple and the children of those marriages but for society as a whole.
I often work with counsellors and other mental health professionals to repair the damage caused to children in these circumstances and see the tragic impact on children's wellbeing up close.
As such, in the 17 years I have practiced family law, I've become rather unshockable in terms of the reasons why people give up on a marriage and how they fail to appreciate the impact this has on their children. And it's not always a generation thing; more than 11,500 couples aged 60 plus were divorced in England and Wales in 2009. Moreover, the over 60s is the only age group where divorce is increasing.
While this may be a symptom of many couples of younger generations tending to live together rather than marrying, the increase in the silver divorce is very much a new trend. I have certainly seen an increase in the amount of clients divorcing after 30 years of marriage or more.
While any divorce is a tragedy for any couple, it's always particularly sad to divorce a client where they have spent the majority of their life with their spouse, watched their children and grand-children grow up and now be at the stage in life where they have substantial time to devote to each other again.
There isn't just one factor to blame for increase in marriage breakdown; rather it would appear to be a combination of current beliefs in society and a change in our outlook. We now live in a society where it is more socially acceptable to divorce than it ever was before, thus the stigma of divorce has by and large been removed.
We also live in a very disposable age, one where we are far more likely to throw something away and start afresh with a new product, item or friendship rather than try to mend the first one, and marriage has also been tainted by this attitude.
Sir Paul made the point that rather than throwing a marriage away, we should get back to putting in the hard work needed to ensure the marriage survives. Every marriage goes through difficult times but the rewards of working on it and making it work are endless, both for the family unit and society.
The rewards are numerous and include improved health and wellbeing (a recent survey shows the health gain from marriage 'may be as large as the benefit of giving up smoking'), and that those raised within a marriage fare best both in childhood and in later life, what's more, they're also increasingly likely to succeed academically and in their professional life.
We are living longer than ever before and many may fear their extended years of retirement stuck in a marriage that hasn't been happy for some time.
Since a change in UK divorce law in 2000, women who have had a traditional family arrangement where the wife stays at home to care for the family and the husband works have had their domestic endeavours recognised as being equally valuable as those of their breadwinning husbands. Unless there are unusual circumstances of a case, after a long marriage, a wife can now expect her 50% of the assets rather than only having her 'reasonable needs' met as was the case previously in law.
Women are now also encouraged to be financially independent of their husbands. More high-earning roles are filled by women who as a result have never been dependent on their husband's salary so a divorce will not be a choice between financial survival and happiness.
As late as the 1970s, more couples tended to marry in their early twenties, often before they had a chance to achieve any of their professional and personal ambitions.
I have seen clients who married early then want to achieve their personal goals later in life once responsibility for young children has passed. Many of us change considerably in our twenties and early thirties as we form our view of the world.
Clients have confessed to me in the past that they changed in the early years of their marriage when their children were young but decided to stay in the marriage until the children had grown up, which is certainly not a new phenomenon. In years gone by, exiting a marriage even when the children had flown the nest still would not have been an option because of the stigma in society of being a divorcee.
The aim of the Marriage Foundation is to increase the rate of marriage and reduce the rate of divorce through "... a sustained and intelligent campaign of persuasion and developing a presence on the internet which will provide everything any individual or couple would want about marriage".
For want of a better description, it will educate regarding the institution of marriage and its benefits.
In my view, this will succeed most through education, namely, educating teenagers about the benefits and responsibilities of marriage. Young people may have picked up negative views of marriage from their upbringing and take those views into their own adult relationships, causing another generation to hold the same negative views.
So much of our society today is based on rights; human rights, the right to family life, the right to a fair trial, the right to freedom of speech. What about the rights of children to be raised in a committed marriage? This education should focus on responsibilities as a married couple and prioritise those above rights.
Secondly, educating those contemplating marriage about the reality of married life is essential. The voluntary Marriage Preparation Course is run by the Anglican Church and provides invaluable guidance of the common problems that can arise in marriage, particularly in the early years, and teaches the skills to overcome them.
Those who have taken this course have described to me how much it helped them face the usual challenges of married life and equipped with a framework in which to deal with these problems, particularly in terms of communication. "I don't think our marriage would have survived without it" is how one lady rated its effectiveness.
Non-religious alternatives for those where faith is not part of their lives are also available, as are specifically-targeted courses for second marriages and step families. Stepfamilies are the fastest growing family type in the UK, but according to a Care for the Family survey, only 7% of those marrying again had received any specific guidance about marrying a partner with children.
If such courses were compulsory, it would force couples to face the reality of their married life ahead rather than making the party aspect of their wedding day the most important factor, and would remind ourselves of the ability to rely on the wider family unit and friends to support married couples through difficult times.
As part of the marriage ceremony, the couple's family and friends commit to supporting the couple through their married life. I wonder how this really converts in practice and how Sir Paul would envisage reminding us of our duty to help those close to us in such circumstances. Perhaps this could form part of the teaching of teenagers or of engaged couples for committing to helping family and friends in those marriages as well as seeking such support themselves.
Sir Paul is right in his intent with the Marriage Foundation: a shock to the system is what is now needed to bring us back to the old-fashioned values of marriage. Cohabitation simply does not provide the same benefits and security, no matter how the figures are dressed up.
We are today in a very different world to the one in which the older generations married and human relationships are always at risk in such changing times. Sir Paul has a wealth of supporters in his quest and I, for one, will be backing him fully.
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Deborah Jeff is a Partner in Family Law at Seddons, London.]]>