News/Blogs  

  A PATHWAY TO CLARITY: THE LAW COMMISSION AND SURROGACY  

Moving from day-to-day, it might seem that our lives and those of individuals around us remain within a relatively familiar frame. However, if we take a moment to reflect, we can discern how family life in the UK has changed just as surely and as rapidly as the fabric of the towns and cities which […]

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  APOCALYPSE? NO: DIVORCE, SETTLEMENT AND REFORM  

It is possible to say without exaggeration or irony that change has been one of the most constant elements of family life in England and Wales over the course of the last half-century. Back in 1973, a major piece of divorce law reform – the Matrimonial Causes Act – came into force. Between then and […]

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  Families, Fertility And Future Proofing  

As regular readers of this ‘blog will no doubt appreciate, home life in the UK has changed considerably in recent decades. In addition to great shifts – some legal and some societal – in how domestic relationships are forged, maintained and even break down, there have been significant developments in how families are started. Overall, […]

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  The Future Of Cohabitation Law Reform In The UK  

Resolution, an organisation of family law professionals committed to resolving matters in a constructive manner, have voiced their determination to continue to advocate for cohabitation law reform at a conference held at the beginning of February. My colleague, Laura Guillon, highlighted in her blog Mirror Marriage: Cohabitation and Complexity (https://hallbrown.co.uk/mirror-marriage-cohabitation-and-complexity/) that there has been resistance […]

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  Domestic Violence: Terror, Threat And Balance  

There is, of course, a famous old saying that “an Englishman’s home is his castle”. However, the scourge of domestic violence means that home is anything but a place of refuge for many individuals. It is heartening, therefore, to hear that the Government is intensifying its efforts to eradicate the threat which people face from […]

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  Young Love, Free Will And Forced Marriage: New Rules To Prevent Abuse  

Times change and so too do the patterns in how couples of all ages form relationships. Data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) provides a constant reminder of great successive shifts in households across England and Wales. For instance, the number of marriages in England and Wales has fallen by 45 per cent […]

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  Census And Sensibility  

Since it was first published (anonymously) just over 200 years ago, Jane Austen’s ‘Sense And Sensibility’ has struck a chord with successive generations of readers. However, despite the book remaining enormously popular, its view of the world – and marriage, in particular – has seemed ever more dated. As the novel illustrated, marriage was the […]

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  DIY And Divorce And Disclosure  

There are few elements of our personal and professional lives which have not benefited from the great surge in technological advances over the last few decades. Smartphones which sit neatly in our hands enable us to forge relationships with and remain connected to individuals on the other side of the world, if we’re so inclined. […]

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  Flexible Families: The Impact Of Homeworking On Home Life  

Almost three years on from the start of lockdown in the UK, there are few who would doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic has been a life-changing event. It has, of course, wrought a terrible toll in the home and the workplace. At the time of writing, the virus has cost the lives of more than […]

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  Added Interest: Divorce, ‘Soft Loans’ And The Bank Of Mum And Dad  

Over the course of the last 18 months or so, almost every household across the UK has experienced the rising cost of living in some form of fashion. The most notable factor has arguably been the increase in energy costs, which a report published by the House of Commons’ Library only last month underlined was […]

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