Archive for July, 2010

“Judge attacks wealthy divorce tourists”….

was the headline in the London Financial Times regarding a case in which Family Law in Partnership acted for Ilya Golubovich who was described by that newspaper as ”a Russian millionaire”.  Reference was made in several of the broadsheets to Lord Justice Thorpe’s comments as to “whether there should not be a more stringent allocation of judicial time to cases such as this where the parties have slender connection with our jurisdiction”. 

To the extent that this can be regarded as a criticism of the parties in this case his comments are unfair.  To start with, Ilya Golubovich was, until very recently, resident in the UK on a tier 1 investment visa that required him to invest at least £1 million in specified British institutions.  If rich foreigners are to be encouraged into the country based on this sort of criteria it is invidious then to criticise them for using our courts. 

In fact Ilya Golubovich did not ask for assistance from the English court.  He started proceedings in Russia.  It was his wife, Elena who brought proceedings in London, knowing that she would most likely do better financially here.  Surely, rather than attack foreigners using our courts we must reform our divorce law so that we are not regarded as the most ‘wife friendly’ jurisdiction in the world and one that creates a climate in which a ‘clean break’ is rarely achievable.  We recognise that our law must protect the vulnerable and that women are seriously prejudiced when they give up work to raise a family but how many other jurisdictions though make life long maintenance orders as standard?

The proceedings were complicated but what is clear is that Ilya achieved a divorce in Russia before Elena achieved a divorce in England.  She then sought to and was successful in persuading Mr Justice Singer not to recognise the Russian divorce.  That decision was wrong and the Court of Appeal has clearly now said so.  Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 (financial relief after an overseas divorce) was enacted after a Law Commission report precisely to prevent this sort of order being necessary.  When Mr Justice Singer decided that the English court could ignore the Russian divorce he took the law back over 20 years.  Had Ilya Golubovich not challenged this decision it would have opened up the floodgates to anyone wishing to ignore proper process in their home jurisdiction. 

Of course what Lord Justice Thorpe was reflecting is something that we will all be concerned with as the UK coalition government’s austerity measures bite: how are we going to maintain the excellent standards of service that we have become used to when budgets are being slashed?  Judicial time is bound to be at even more of a premium and what legal practitioner’s will have to do is find better ways of resolving disputes so that expensive court proceedings can be avoided.  Collaborative family law and mediation are now widely offered by many family lawyers. For more information see www.resolution.org.uk for specialist family lawyers offering these alternative services.

 For more information about the effects of this case on your personal circumstances contact info@flip.co.uk

Aspirations: the difference that makes a difference

When people first go to see a divorce lawyer they are probably quite apprehensive, even if they want to be divorced. They are apprehensive because they are putting their future into the hands of another person whom they have never met before.

Traditionally the lawyer has taken a lot of factual information from the client – name, address, date of birth, names and ages of children, the amount of capital and the level of income etc. They then give advice of the likely outcome in court. And that’s fine for some clients but increasingly that is not fine for most.

What clients want first and foremost is to be listened to and to be heard. They want what is important to them to be given some regard, in fact, to be given prominence. They want account taken of who they are as individuals and what help their families need.

So the challenge for lawyers is to start a meeting with a new client with an approach that looks at things from the client’s perspective rather from the lawyer’s pre-determined agenda and anticipated outcomes. This means we must start by finding out who the client really is and what matters to them. The best way to do this is to ask questions and to listen to the answers, if necessary asking further questions to get the whole picture.

  • In this situation, what is most important to you?
  • If you were to look back on this time how do you want this process of divorce and separation to have been like for you and for your family as a whole?
  • If you can look forward to the end of the process what do you want to be able to do with and for yourself and your family when it is over?
  • And ask them to answer the same questions from their partner/spouses perspective and from their children’s perspective.

The answers are the client’s aspirations and finding these out at an early stage in the relationship is the difference that can make the difference to how the divorce and separation proceed.  Most people want to be fair. Most people want their children to be as unharmed by the experience as possible. Most people want to be dignified and act with integrity. So it is the job of family lawyers to help the client choose a process for resolving differences which has the greatest likelihood of matching their aspirations.

For details of process options see http://www.resolution.org.uk/process/

For more information contact info@flip.co.uk