In a very special article, David Burrows marks half a century at the coalface: has anything changed for the better?
- The key changes in the family law field over the last 50 years, including in children law, judicial case management, mediation, child support, and the splitting-out of family proceedings from the wider community of civil proceedings.
On 1 March 1973, I was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court. I have a certificate signed by ‘Denning M.R.’ (Lord Denning was then Master of the Rolls). I later mutated—without anyone asking if I minded (I do)—to being a solicitor of the senior courts. Somewhere in the middle of all that (July 1997), I was renamed a ‘solicitor advocate’. I was then allowed to appear as advocate in all courts.
Five areas of law—mostly family law (my specialist area, loosely interpreted)—have developed in those 50 years, not always for the better:
- children law;
- judicial case management;
- mediation in family law;
- child support; and
- ghettoisation of family proceedings from
