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What do Family Lawyers do?

Family Solicitors - what do they do?

Family law tends to be concentrated at the high street end of the legal profession, with the majority of family lawyers dealing with matters for both private or legal services commission funded (legal aid) clients, where there is probably one large asset (a house), a couple of children, and warring parents.

Family law is divided up into sectors - there is divorce and ancillary relief (the latter is the financial aspects of divorce - who gets what), children work (contact, residence and restrictions on living arrangements) and injunctions for domestic violence.

If you are thinking of doing family law at the higher end of the scale, the majority of the work is ancillary relief - who gets what from the money put together in the marriage. At the lower end, it is likely to be a mix of children and domestic violence with straightforward divorces with no finances involved.
Family lawyers tend to be a breed unto themselves. There can be a lot of "my client says your client smells, and I think so too", and rather a lot of passion involved in the efforts to obtain the best outcome. It can be very stressful work, with stressed out clients, busy courts, lots of paperwork to keep on top of, and billing can take over 12 months to bring in for larger cases.

Solicitors can have up to around 50 cases ongoing at any time, depending on the size of the files. If you dont like advocacy by the way, this is not a field to get into - family lawyers have to constantly do this, even if not in court - you are often negotiating with the other side, the courts and various institutions to get the best result for your client...

The Legal Services Commission - The Legal Aid Board - have gradually reduced what work there was at the bottom end of the market, and a lot of firms have pulled out of the work completely, having experienced working for £10 per hour for slightly too long. The majority of work these days is privately funded.
Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - no.1 online legal recruitment agency - save time, skip the legal job boards and register with us! www.ten-percent.co.uk/register.htm

Comments

Anonymous said…
can you put what type of cases family law lawyers work with like:
adoption,child support,pre-marital agreements, etc.?
Anonymous said…
Family law refers to anything involving legal services that has to do with families. When people get divorced, they need to have the services of a family lawyer. This person helps them to divide the property fairly and settle disputes ...
Anonymous said…
i need to know the salary and the education necessary to be a family lawyer
Anonymous said…
Salary can vary from anything around £20k for a very small high street firm dealing with LSC funded work up to £60-70k for someone handling high net worth clients regularly with ancillary relief work.

Education can either be the ILEX route, the solicitor route or the barrister route if you are wanting to go into chambers. See our Career Coaching pages for further assistance - http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/career.htm
Anonymous said…
what classes do you have to take to become a family lawyer?
Anonymous said…
what degree can you get from studying family law?

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