Horrendous. That's how one of our District judges describes the position litigants in person find themselves in during private law Children Act court system. And it seems he is not alone in this view. According to the Gazette:

"The Civil Justice Council’s (CJC) recent report on the situation pulls no punches: ‘It is hard to overstate just how difficult it can be - for the person, for the court and for other parties - when someone self-represents.’ "

Growing numbers of people are representing themselves in family law applications before the court.

Why is it a problem? Because it's like picking two families in the car park at B & Q and giving them six weeks to build a house. Suppose all the materials are made available and there are instructions manuals inside on a shelf by the till (they have to be paid for and are written in olde English.) Throughout the build process experts turn up and tell them what theyr're doing wrong but refuse point blank to help because they are not allowed to. At the end the town planners will decide who wins - whilst the loser has to pay for the land.

Whatever the opposite of user friendly is, being a litigant in person you will probably find it describes your court experience.

For a justice system to work properly it is fundamental that the people who use that system understand the rules. And for the rules to be understood, people need to be able to find out about them - whether that is on the internet or in the library or by seeking advice from an organisation, profit or non-profit making.

Without this there will be chaos.

Until fairly recently most people in England and Wales had access to some level of free information and advice. The poorest people were not significantly disadvantaged because their advice from a solicitor was subsidised or in some cases paid for outright by the tax payer via the legal aid system. Law centres and Citizens Advice Bureaus, staffed by a combination of professional and lay volunteers filtered thousands of enquiries pointing citizens in the direction of solicitors or ombudsmen or whoever else was most appropriate to help.

Solicitors themselves traditionally often offered free initial interviews to attract customers.

But now there is no money. Law centres are closing. Citizens advice is overwhelmed with the number of people who cannot afford a solicitor. Legal aid is being as is access to it. Fewer firms choose to or are permitted to offer the service and for those who do, the task of making a living becomes ever more difficult in the face of rising business costs and falling/stagnating payment rates.

But the following are statistics taken from the Office of National Statistics annual report on the Court and Judiciary:-

"Family matters

The number of divorces rose in 2010, a reversal of the recent downward trend

seen in previous years.

Key points for 2010

122,800 private law applications (applications for court orders which are

brought by private individuals) were made in 2010,

133,500 petitions for the dissolution of marriage filed in 2010, The number of

divorces increased by five per cent to 121,300, a reversal of the recent

downward trend and now reflecting the trend seen for petitions.

24,100 domestic violence orders were made in 2010.

Since being made available from 25 November 2008, a total of 257 Forced

Marriage Protection Orders were made up to the end of 2010.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/statistics-and-data/courts-and-sentencing/judicial-court-stats.pdf

Whilst the above gives us information on how many court applications were commenced in our courts in 2010, what it doesn't tell us - yet - is how many of those were dealt with without a solicitor or other representative. These statistics will come as it is now part of the form filling process to stipulate if you are represented or not and to state whether you have received advice or been to mediation before applying to court.

But whilst the publication of these statistics is likely to be some way off anyone already working in the court system knows that there has been a sharp increase in people who don't have anyone with them, keeping them calm, reassuring them, explaining the rules and the process and of course putting forward their case to the Judge clearly, calmly and quickly.

This results in longer hearings where the Judge (prevented from providing legal advice to either side) tries to deal with couples so locked in bitterness that finding a way forward that will benefit their child is nigh on impossible.

We all know from the playground that fighting gets us in trouble no matter who started it and who was in the wrong. The teachers don't want to know details they don't have time to listen to. They just want the fighting to stop.

Not a lot changes as we get older. The teachers are simply substituted with employers, police or Judges.

They don't have time to take in all the details of a broken relationship and even if they did what purpose would it serve? But who is going to tell the litigant in person what to expect? Who is going to explain what the Judge can and cannot do? Who is going to explain what information is needed?

Take another look at those statistics. 122,800 applications for private law children act applications. 133,500 divorces.

There are only 444 full time District Judges working in county courts in England and Wales. All divorces are dealt with in the county court. That is 300 divorces each per year on average. And that isn't counting the Children Act applications for residence and contact orders. And let's not forget the 1.6 million non-family cases that these same 444 District Judges also have to deal with - applications for repossession of homes, personal injury claims etc. Even with the assistance of 788 part time District Judges who work up to one day per week on average, that's an awful lot of work to get through, even when the people in the court room understand what is going on.

Of course it's horrendous.

There are 389,800 people in need of professional straightforward legal advice at an affordable price. And they're not all getting it. It doesn't have to be the luxury model advice... the haute couture version of advice. Just simple, informative advice about procedure, options and the cost of more bespoke representation versus mediation or other alternative forms of dispute resolution.

I have banged on before about fending off the threat from the new ABS now authorised to enter the legal market.

If solicitors don't make our services accessible and affordable they will. They won't work the way we do. We may not like it. We may think we can do better and maybe we can. But so what if no one uses us because they can't afford to?

There is an opportunity here for solicitors to modernise their services.

Around 1 in 10 of our adult working population needs legal advice every year. It's time to stop complaining about cuts to legal aid (which must be preserved for the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society not every person on low income who wants to get a divorce) and focus on making services attractive, streamlined, - and above all affordable.

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/litigants-person-could-find-access-justice-hard

I agree with Celia entirely. (See article here)

I'm sure every family lawyer has had a client who has asked "Are you tough? Will you fight for me?"

It depends what they're after in the end. If they're suffering terrible injustice at the hands of a bullying, dominant or violent ex-partner, then of course I will.

If they want to stop all contact between a child and his/her other parent for no good reason then no I won't. I'll politely explain the approach of the court (and me) to issues of this nature and they will only instruct me if they like what they hear. It's best for both client and lawyer to establish whether they suit each other at the very beginning.

I wouldn't buy a rottweiler and I have no intention of turning into one.

Aggressive = expensive. Nothing else.

In the bad old days when orders for costs were routinely made, fear of paying for your ex-partner's sky high legal costs for a lawyer who argued every point relevant or not, forced people to cave in to often ridiculous demands.

Arrogant self-delusion gave these lawyers the self-belief that their negotiation skills were to be given the credit for this run of success, whereas in fact it was commercial realism.

Clients either had no money to carry on fighting them or weighed up the risk that on a bad day they might not succeed entirely and so be ordered to pay up.

Now the only people who need to fear the letter dropping on the mat is the client getting the bill from them that no one else is likely to have to pay.

The wasps have lost their sting. Let's hope they soon die out.

A £500,000 lottery win has been held to be non matrimonial property according to this BBC report.

Article in the guardian this week states there has been a drop in divorce based on adultery since the recession began.

But why on earth did the guardian decided to publish comments made by Louisa Plumb that this is down to Cheryl Cole and Abbey Clancy? Surely not a cynical ploy to get their article read by a wider audience.

So far no one has instructed me to avoid adultery because Cheryl Cole did. And as far as I'm aware, apart from some very embarrassing naked photos on his phone, there's no proof he committed adultery and as any divorce lawyer knows, adultery must be proved in the absence of an admission.

Sending pictures of yourself in the altogether, visiting lap dance clubs, being snapped with a woman who isn't your wife on your knee, all might make you look like a rat but does it prove adultery?

And I'm sure Louisa Plumb is lovely and very good at her job as associate director of forensic and investigation services at Grant Thornton chartered accountants - but I can well understand that she found it difficult to explain the movement in reasons for divorce.

Could it be that apart from helping to compile these statistics she has no other involvement with people who are getting divorced?

If you ask me - and as usual no one has - it has nothing to do with whether the actual level of adultery has dropped (which I doubt).

I have dealt with more five year separation cases in the last twelve months than in the previous twenty years. People are in no rush to divorce because - as is rightly pointed out by the overwhelming 82% of divorce lawyers interviewed - they haven't got any money.

Some separate, perhaps not straightaway, perhaps they drift on for a bit and then one of them moves in with parents or to a small flat. Some can't sell the house - not just because the housing market is a bit flat but because even if they could sell, new mortgages are not so easy to find now.

Some have significant debts, others are or have been unemployed.

Dashing down the high street to find the nearest solicitor to fire off divorce proceedings costing upwards of £600 or £700 just hasn't seemed that much of a priority. But it doesn't mean that the underlying reasons for divorce have actually changed that much.

Thousands of years of human existence, love, passion and betrayal, has not come to an end because of the shenanigans of a couple of footballers and their over-indulged wives. It's an insult to women up and down the country to suggest that we would treat the most traumatic experience we are likely to have apart from bereavement so frivolously.

By the time people are ready financially to get on with divorce the anger has died for some. Maybe they too have someone new. They don't want to dig up all the old pain again. Theyjust want the cheapest, easiest option.

The last three years have been damned hard for most people. So if they want to get on with their lives and look to the future, put the past behind them - let them. Let them put the reason for their divorce as "drifted apart" which in fact translates on the paperwork to 2 or 5 years separation. It's better for them and it's better for their children.

But please don't say it's something to do with "celebrity culture" whatever that is.

Sorry Louisa, it isn't that hard to explain if you meet and talk to the people going through this difficult and sad period in their lives, if you listen to their stories, help them find the least adversarial and confrontational way forward.

It may not be sensational. It may not sell papers. But it's the truth.