The family law protocol book

Thanks for watching this video – it’s about – it’s one of a series of videos that I am doing about books that you really ought to know about in any divorce proceedings.

This is the ‘Family Law Protocol’. It’s the latest one. It was issued in November 2010. It’s not the most recent in terms of date but it is actually. I do use it you see, and what you’ve got is it’s issued by the Law Society. You can get it through the internet and what it does is it sets out how you’re supposed to approach a divorce.

Now you may find that this is useful because… if you’re going through an acrimonious divorce, you may find that the solicitor on the other side is not complying with the protocol. It might be useful to refer him or her to the protocol – the relevant extract – in order to bring it back online.

The whole point of the protocol is to avoid acrimony wherever possible. Now it talks about various codes of practice, ADR, which is about mediation, mainly, but can be about arbitration.

It talks about pre-nups; domestic violence; children; law; whether or not you’re getting to see your children, or somebody’s trying to take the children away from you.

It talks about public law, which is care proceedings, where social services may be involved, and it also deals with other areas which you hopefully won’t come into contact with, such as abduction. I mean, that’s an awful thing when child abduction occurs.

And it talks about also divorce, child support, Schedule One proceedings under the Children Act – that’s where you’re not married but you have children – or a child – and you’re saying “Well surely I have some rights?”, and yes you do. The Children Act 1989 deals with that. And in particular Schedule One can be very helpful to you. It also talks about financial proceedings within divorce and talks about cohabitation.

So it’s actually quite a useful book, I can recommend it, it talks about how you should prepare for court – all sorts of useful things are in here.

It’s not too long, it’s about 145 pages, and then it’s got various appendices with details of other books which you might find useful.

So a great starting point – Family Law Protocol. 3rd edition – obviously when they bring out a 4th edition I’ll have to bring out another video!