From 1st April 2013 Legal Aid will change significantly. In most areas of private family law legal aid will no longer be available regardless of financial circumstances. There will be some limited exceptions to this, principally: Applications for injunctions for protection from domestic violence. Cases where the applicant is the victim of domestic violence, to […]
The Family Justice Young People’s Board established by Cafcass (the family court advisory service) has published a list of wishes as to how it would like the family justice system to operate. The top five wishes are: Cases do not drag on and are always focused on our needs; There is more support when we […]
Oscar winning actress Halle Berry has lost a court battle with her ex-partner over whether or not she could take their daughter Nahla to live in France. Halle wanted to re-locate to Paris with her French fiance Olivier Martinez. She argued that France would be a better place for Nahla to grow up due to the constant […]
A Judge has taken the unusual step of releasing the names and photographs of four children who went missing with their mother Jennifer Jones after a court ordered that they should be returned to the care of their father who lives in Spain. Miss Jones was ordered to return the children by midnight on Friday […]
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY? Parental responsibility sounds like something that we all know about but actually more than 20 years after the legal concept was introduced many parents still do not know what it is, how you get it or why it is important. It is often only after they have been to see us at Higgins […]
Every year at Higgins Miller Solicitors we are used to seeing an increase in new clients wanting to commence divorce proceedings in January. This can sometimes be because they have had a difficult time over Christmas with their spouse or simply because they want to make a new start along with the new year. We […]
The BBC website has today run an article about Family Intervention Projects which are run across the country to help parents get to grips with difficulties they have had in parenting their children and running their homes. The project provides a very intensive service and the workers are available seven days a week. They can […]
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has this weekend published an article in the Guardian vowing not to allow any watering down of human rights legislation in this country. He makes the very valid point that the human rights act is most used in this country by those who are most vulnerable and often in the […]
At Higgins Miller we are obviously involved with many single parents and although generally attitudes have moved on there still appears to be some stigma attached to being a single parent. Whilst we believe that it is best for a child to have a positive relationship with both parents following a the breakdown of a […]
A committee of MPs has published a report proposing reforms to how child maintenance s paid. The report identifies that the current system run by the Child Support Agency is inadequate and leaves many children of separated parents without sufficient child maintenance and notes that many single parents receive either irregular or no payments of […]