Family Law

While much has been achieved regarding reform of the family justice system in the past five years, more remains to be done, the President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, stressed at the Family Law Bar Association conference at on 12 May 2018. His speech focused on the forthcoming digital revolution and what it will mean for the Family Bar.

The great change in prospect, he said, is the reform of the court process to bring it into the modern electronic world, something which is ‘long overdue’, and will result in ‘the digital court of the future’.

While the pace of change is rapidly accelerating, there is still a long way to go ‘to the entirely digitised and paperless court of the future’. Sir James expressed his belief that the Courts Modernisation Programme would achieve positive and beneficial change over the next few years.

The Bar, he said, is facing ‘enormous and daunting challenges – the Criminal Bar is facing a great crisis, and the Family Bar difficulties perhaps almost as great’. He expressed confidence, however, that those working within the Bar possess the ‘determination, courage and wise leadership’ to meet the challenge, concluding: ‘the digital revolution will enable us to carry through a radical revision of both court forms and court orders.’

Read his speech in full here.