The legal world is changing, perhaps more quickly than ever in history. Ways of doing things, written in stone for decades, if not centuries, are being swept away.
The Covid 19 pandemic may have accelerated them, but these changes have been underway for some time, and are surely inevitable.
We are talking about the move towards conducting family law work online. We are seeing this in particular with remote court hearings due to the pandemic, but before the pandemic there was already a move towards making applications to the court online.
Until recently if you wanted to make an application to the court you had to do so on paper. You then either had to go to the court to issue it, or you had to post it to the court. All of which involved unnecessary work and delay – for example, if the court was not happy with the paperwork, it would post it back to the sender, the sender would have to amend it, and then return it to the court.
Now the age of paper applications is coming to an end. One of the latest manifestations of this is the online child arrangements application.
Back in February the Ministry of Justice and HM Courts & Tribunals Service (‘HMCTS’) launched a new online service enabling parents and their legal representatives to apply to the court digitally to make child arrangements.
The new service is more convenient, faster and avoids many of the errors or omissions that paper applications used to contain, by picking them up during the online process. When it was launched Richard Goodman, HMCTS Change Director commented:
“For parents, it can often be a stressful, challenging time when trying to arrange visits to see children and this system is designed to make that process as straightforward as possible.
“As the court reform programme progresses, we will continue introduce services that make the justice system easier to navigate and more efficient for all those that use it.”
It is already possible to issue divorce proceedings online, and soon almost all family law business will be conducted online (although many hearings will take place in court buildings again, once the pandemic is over).
All of this of course fits in perfectly with Family Law Cafés vision of how family business should be conducted in the twenty-first century. There is no reason now why family law litigants should be required to physically contact their lawyers every time they need information or advice regarding their case, or to rely on the postal service when they wish to take a step in the proceedings.
The modern way to conduct a family law case is online, from wherever you are, whenever you wish.
If you require advice regarding sorting out arrangements for children, Family Law Café can put you in touch with an expert family lawyer – for further information, call us on 020 3904 0506, or click here, and fill in the form.
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Family Law Café offers a modern, agile and compassionate approach to family law, giving you a helping hand when you need it and guiding you through the complexities of this difficult and stressful area. Family Law Cafe is your start-point for getting matters sorted with strategy, support and security.
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash