Family Law

A caution over unqualified legal advice, by Rebecca Ranson, a solicitor at Maguire Family Law.

Last week, The Law Society Gazette published an article regarding a former police chief inspector who has taken on the task of convincing people across the UK to “self-litigate” and use McKenzie Friends rather than lawyers to conduct their family law proceedings.

Philip Kedge will be launching his ‘Blue Light McKenzie Friends’ website at the end of the month. It is reported that he has recruited around 100 former police officers who will ‘help’ litigants in person to navigate their way through the court process.

Concerningly, Mr Kedge has also been reported as stating that ‘you don’t need lawyers in a family court’ and ‘the legal system in family law is no more than human disagreement – there are no legal questions’. Clearly, almost every family lawyer in the country would disagree with this.

Family law is based on statutes, legal provisions and case law as with any other area of law. These are not always written in a way which is easy to understand and interpret. Coupled with this, many of our clients are struggling emotionally with the impact of their proceedings and this can affect their ability to look at maters objectively. We deal with every day people whose assets will inevitably deplete as a result of their relationship breakdown and we understand the pressure that this can cause in terms of paying legal fees.

Expert, well timed, practical, qualified legal advice can help clients to save money in the long term.

That is not what you can expect from a McKenzie Friend. McKenzie Friends are not legally trained, nor do they have to have any legal background whatsoever. Mr Kedge’s ‘bright’ idea of Blue Light McKenzie Friends shows just that. Police officers do not deal with family law and would have no experience of this unless they have gone through the proceedings themselves. Being a police officer does not mean that you are automatically an expert in all other areas of law, just like we family lawyers would not be experts in medical negligence.

You should be very cautious when using McKenzie Friends, as ultimately they are charging you £60 – £100 per hour for their time, not their skills or advice. One website describes their McKenzie Friends as ‘experts in child custody’ and as ‘professional established Mckenzie friend lay lawyer’. There is no such thing as a lay lawyer, and equally, there is no such thing as ‘child custody’ in English law.

There are important differences between family law solicitors and McKenzie Friends: