Being a Self-Repper - or 'How I stayed in Charge of my Own Proceedings in a Family Law Case and got Fairness in Court - Without Huge Legal Bills' by Linda Franklin

The legal aid, punishment and sentencing of offenders bill will come into force this April. The legislation will cut £350m from the £2.2bn legal aid scheme by removing entire areas of law from public funding, including nearly all family advice.

Being a Self-Repper - or 'How I stayed in Charge of my Own Proceedings in a Family Law Case and got Fairness in Court - Without Huge Legal Bills'... Linda Franklin writes the concluding part of her story.

On 1st April 2013 the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishing of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) will come into effect. This will mean a change to the scope of legal aid for private family cases.

As Wikizine celebrates its first birthday with the theme for the magazine being ‘one year on’, I started to think about family law and what had happened to it over the last twelve months.

Many people have never set foot inside a court building and wouldn’t dream of doing so without a lawyer to guide them through the process. It’s a common misconception that you have to have a lawyer in order to go to court, but that has never been true. Everyone is entitled to use the legal system whether or not they have a lawyer, although there are good reasons why most people would prefer not to. For most people who keep their noses clean and don’t end up in the criminal courts, the only time they are likely to have to go to court is on a family matter.

...mean lawyers may no longer be able to help themselves! Lawyers have spent the Summer moaning bitterly about Imerman but much of what the legal sector has expressed, in their fevered articles decrying the decision and painting the judgment as a Cheat’s Charter, is in part, the stuff of smokescreens.

Long ago I was asked to help a friend who unfortunately found himself in court trying to agree finances following the breakdown of the marriage after 20 years.

From 27 April 2009 family Courts were opened to the media in an attempt to increase transparency and understanding of the legal process. Although this sounds ominous, Judges have wide discretion to exclude the media or restrict reporting. Furthermore, the media do not have the right to see documents relied on in Court.

This is a sad tale of a lady who discovered that her husband was a fraudster, it turned out to the tune of £2m or so, when his solicitor turned up at the family home demanding that she sign over all her share of the family assets to prevent the children from seeing their father carted off to prison.

One of the elements to really control from the get-go is the mechanism for how you choose to divorce and choosing good people to help you manage the divorce. This is especially important when children are involved. Choosing a divorce lawyer is one of the most important aspects of getting a divorce. Your divorce lawyer is not simply required to reach a financial settlement but to do so in relation to emotionally sensitive issues.

You have to make a way! A Will is easy to overlook, it’s something that you keep meaning to get round to doing, you put it off until a later date or make it your New Year’s Resolution (it then remains in the pile of things to do the following year). But a Will is one of the most important things you can do; it allows you to make plans for what would happen to your loved ones in the event of your death.