No.18 Chambers News Page 21

Guidance issued by Mrs Justice Theis :Practice Guidance on Service of Part 4 Family Law Act 1996 applications, orders and notification to the police: Pilot Practice Direction 36U

Sarah Barber (2018)

Practice guidance has been issued by Mrs Justice Theis (Acting President of the Family Division) on Service of Part 4 Family Law Act 1996 applications, orders and notification to the police. At the Family Procedure Rule Committees meeting in July 2020 they considered the issue of service arrangements for applications...

Re C and the dangers of remote hearings

Re C [2020] EWCA Civ 987 is a warning to practitioners and Judges alike. A hybrid hearing took place, where medical evidence was conducted by Zoom. The Appellant however gave evidence in the court building. During her second day of evidence, the Appellant stated she was unwell with back pain...

Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020 (coming into force on 23 August 2020) The Statutory Instrument is being published via the Legislation website at: The on-line rules/web site will also be updated accordingly. This follows The Civil Procedure (Amendment No.2) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020, which came into effect on 25...

Sarah Barber (2018)

The case of GC v A County Council and Ors [2020] EWCA Civ 848 concerned an application for care orders by a Local Authority in respect of a child who had suffered a suspected NAI. The injury was a small fracture and haematoma which the adult family members could not...

Last Month in the Legal Gazette one of the commentators was quoted as saying that ‘ Business as usual ‘for Personal Injury and Civil work is a ‘fairly distant prospect’. Whether this is still true after the latest announcement from Lord Chief Justice and Lord Justice Lindblom ( which details the...

James Vatcher (2006)

No.18 Are delighted to announce that James Vatcher appeared on South Today together with Eleanor Towsey of KJ Smith to discuss the impact of Covid 19 on the Family Courts. Click here to view a full copy of the interview by Sophia Seth....

Rachel Chapman (2017)

Coronavirus has continued to raise several questions in the context of Family Law. In particular, with children in separated families and also children in care. On 1 July 2020 the House of Commons Library published a useful report (‘the Report’) answering some of the most asked questions at the moment. The...

Sarah Barber (2018)

This is the latest reported case concerning an application to adjourn a final hearing in care proceedings due to the coronavirus pandemic. The father, who made the application to adjourn, required the assistance of an intermediary to engage in the proceedings. Facts The background of the case is that in October 2018,...

This rapid evidence review examines what is known about the implications of digital contact on the well-being of children who have been separated from their birth relatives. The review was commissioned following the implementation of social distancing measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the UK in March 2020....

Cafcass have published two new protocols setting out their approach to returning to in-person work with children and families and using Cafcass offices during the Covid-19 pandemic . The protocol on their return to in person work with children and families explains that they will be using both remote video...

Damage Based Agreements: At No.18 we recognise that new methods of funding need to be found in order to bring claims. No.18 are delighted to offer Damage Based Agreements as a solution. We are committed to assess cases as to whether Damage Based Agreements are an appropriate recourse of funding for a...

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic every possible effort has been made to offer continued access to justice whilst ensuring the safety of judges, magistrates, staff, and those attending court and tribunal buildings. The collective efforts of all those involved have allowed us to deal with a greater proportion of our caseload...

Gary Fawcett (1975)

There have been three recent cases on the treatment of pensions in financial remedy cases; one decided by HHJ Hess and two by HHJ Robinson. Although not Court of Appeal, it is interesting to see what was said. HHJ Hess is joint author of Pensions on Divorce and co-chair of...

Lockdown Solutions

No18 continues to be committed to providing the highest level of service, client care, advocacy and advice by ensuring that the needs, concerns and interests of clients are always paramount support by over 50 years of clerking expertise. Just in case you have missed them some of our initiatives over...

The latest updated version of the Remote Family Access Court has been published. Mr Justice MacDonald has highlighted the following updates in it: Hybrid Hearings are now covered in detail at para [3.2.3.1] and a Protocol for Hybrid Hearings is set out at Appendix 3 A new hybrid hearing template order has...

Hybrid hearings and Hybrid instructions

Following the latest reports and policy statements it is clear that the use of Hybrid hearings and actual attendance at court is only going to get greater in the coming months. As the legal market continues to adapt to this new world clients are also evolving and want to make...

Sarah Barber (2018)

This case concerns an appeal against a case management decision in care proceedings whereby the lower court refused an application by a parent with a learning disability for an intermediary assessment and for the appointment of an intermediary. In what is seemingly the first reported appeal against a case management decision...

Though I cannot profess to have written the attached document (see attached), I thought it might be of use to share. This guide has been produced by the FLBA working group in order to assist represented parents when they are attending a remote court hearing whether on-line or by telephone....

This week has seen the Public law Working Group publish the final report on special guardianship orders (click here to view the reoprt) .The President of the family division commented ; ‘Since its addition to the canon of orders that are available to the Family Court in 2005, the role of...

General Guidance on pdf bundles

The guidance has been provided by Sir Andrew McFarlane (President of the Family Division) (click here to view guidance) , Lady Justice Thirlwall (Senior Presiding Judge) & Mr Justice Mann (Judge in charge of Live Services) in order to achieve a level of useful consistency in the provision of PDF...

News Page 21

News Articles From No.18 Chambers

Our Accreditations Highlight Our Legal Expertise