Family Law covers areas of the law such as the division of family property, child custody, visitation rights for parents, child abduction, adoption, divorce, child neglect, civil unions, marriage and these types of issues. Worldwide these kinds of legal cases are on the increase due in some part to the rise in divorce and relationship breakups.
Family law, unlike much of the rest of the legal profession, touches very sensitive subjects since it deals with someone’s private life. It is often the case that family solicitors can end up not only dealing with the legal aspects of the case but also acting as counselors to the persons they represent. Plus, as well as counselors, they are often asked to be mediators & negotiators for the parties they are standing for. In many cases, the courts themselves will try to get the family members to come to some kind of reconciliation.
Family Law in recent years has undergone changes and this is due in most part to the way society views the different types of relationships that are now free for people to follow. As well as marriage between a man and a woman, this is known as traditional marriage, there is same sex marriage, & civil partnerships. As well as these there has been a recognition of common law marriage after a couple have been living as a married couple for more than a few years.
A popular approach to divorce has been to engage in collaborative law in a way to reduce the expense of an ongoing divorce law suit. The way this works is to use a structured process to resolve the disputes instead of going into what can be lengthy legal proceedings in the courts of law. Collaborative Law lets the couples, whether married or in civil partnerships that are in dispute to with the uses of their respective solicitors to follow a process that is guided by the solicitors to come to an amicable resolution.
Family law in the modern age does discourage families from going to court since this process can be very lengthy, costly, and can in many cases do more damage to the people involved than the original breakup.
For Collaborative Family Law, the parties in dispute can come away from the process with an amicable result, thus benefitting not only the individuals, but also any children involved and other family members. In such cases the solicitors involved take up an agreement that if either party was to end up going to court with this same case, that they would not represent them in court. When Collaborative family law has been applied, it has resulted in successfully reconciled couples that would otherwise been at each other’s throats throughout a traditional divorce law suit.