Welcome to another week.
The House of Commons library has managed to gather what data there is on Litigants in Person (LIPs) in the civil courts and has just put it all into one report for reading. The report comes at a time when a renewed call to create a code of conduct for McKenzie Friends has seen an interesting shift in thinking.
The rise of the McKenzie friend, lay advisors who offer legal and general guidance to parents and children going through the Family Court who cannot afford conventional representation (sometimes referred to as LIPs), has also highlighted an opportunistic streak within the legal profession.
A recent article in the Law Gazette quotes Chair of the Society of Professional McKenzie Friends, Ray Barry, as saying that only fee charging McKenzies should be able to stand up in court and talk on behalf of their clients.
Mr Barry’s Society of Professional McKenzie Friends – previously named The McKenzie Friends Trade Association – are not strictly speaking, lay advisors, or individuals without legal qualifications . We wrote about the Association in 2014, when we noticed that most McKenzies on their books were in fact, lawyers.
So, this week, we have two questions for you: firstly, do you think practicing lawyers should also be allowed to act as McKenzie Friends, and secondly, do you agree with Mr Barry that only fee charging lay advisors should get rights of audience?
Researching Reform 
Re whether practising lawyers should be allowed to act as McKenzie friends, I don’t have an opinion since I don’t have enough information on the issue.
But regarding rights to audience, and whether only fee-charging lay advisors should have these rights, I think this quite wrong. I live in an EU country where litigants in person and lay advisors have no rights to audience. We are dealing with a very complicated family case. Economic difficulty has drastically limited my professional legal advice options. So rights to audience for lay people seems important to me. Should be safeguarded.
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SHONAGH sounds like a very reasonable answer
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I know Ray Barry fairly well and I am surprised he’s saying this, as he and I have acted as McKenzie friends and I am currently acting as one at present. McKenzie friends are not allowed to speak in Court, only quietly advise. Am I missing something? Is there a move to allow McKenzie friends to speak on behalf of people in Court? I know that in certain extreme cases, where a person is too upset to speak in Court, a McKenzie friend is allowed to speak on their behalf, but this is rare.
Practising lawyers should not, in my opinion, act as McKenzie friends unless they do NOT charge for this service. I make it clear I am not a lawyer and I make it clear that I do it only if I believe my ‘client’ cannot afford legal fees and that they have a valid case. I can only help on matters I have personally had experience of, and therefore I feel unable to charge a fee. I suspect that if McKenzie friends start charging a fee, the emphasis will be on a commercial footing rather than helping others simply because of a belief that they need and deserve help. I regard it as a privilege to be asked.
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Hi Roger, under the current guidelines, they are in fact allowed to speak, however they must get permission from the judge beforehand.
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In 2007, I was given right of audiance by Lord Justice in RCJ when acting as McKenzie friend.
I did not ask for it though.
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Shows how much I know! But I’ve never been given an audience by a Judge and assumed that this was normal practice. In my own case a few years back in the High Court, my adversary had a McKenzie friend who wanted to speak, ‘but was not allowed to’ according to the Judge.
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To be fair to you Roger, most judges don’t know the guidelines. I think there was a little research on this a while back with most court houses asked, not having a clue. The research found the majority simply ignored McKenzies and wouldn’t allow them to assist, whilst some were to varying degrees more welcoming. Certainly when I’ve assisted in the past the judges have always been pleasant and welcoming, but the London courts are a little more aware, very generally speaking. I’ve written quite a bit about the guidelines and how they don’t actually preclude McKenzies from giving legal advice and so on.
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Roger your answer also sounds full of reason,good information and logic
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In the 60s the law was that any person could apply for a care order to be discharged and I used to do that as a member of Kent County Council presenting cases and calling parents and their children as witnesses.I never lost a case ,not because I was a brilliant advocate but because the magistrates were friendly and if anything, biased in favour of parents in those days ! The disastrous Children Act 1989 changed that happy situation and decided that only parents themselves or qualified lawyers could present the case unless exceptions were made by judges…
Parents should be allowed to appoint anyone they choose especially if that person is doing it for free and not for cash !! Free services should be a plus not a minus.
You have to believe in your client and fight every step of the way to let them keep their babies or Young children to be any use and those who only help if they get cash out of it do not deserve a Monopoly !
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very well said-sounds like most people on this site are good at getting there facts right, maybe a big part of what this world needs.
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Reblogged this on World Peace Forum.
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When McKenzie friends were few and posed no threat to lawyers there was no problem. Nowadays people rely on McKenzie friends due to a lack of money and a lack of trust of lawyers known as “professional losers!”. Lawyers have lost an income due to the legal aid cuts so will be trying to pick up business.
There are some McKenzie friends who are only in it for the money which makes them as bad as those other family court leeches. Then there are some who are skilled and passionate about helping families.
Having been in a situation of using all three, only the skilled McKenzie Friend was any help. I felt ripped off by both the other Mc Kenzie friend who charged an inordinate amount and was a liability and the family court lawyer who took my money knowing it was impossible to win.
McKenzie friends should be giving rights of audience if they are competent as families are nervous and too emotional and have no knowledge of courts. They should be free too.
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yet again a great answer-all the best
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I think regardless of whether McKenzie Friend is a registered lawyer or a lay lawyer, if no fee is being paid, they are acting as a McKenzie Friend and as such, they should have ‘rights of audience’ as an independent witness in support of their client.
It would help, if there were some kind of oath that McKenzie Friend Association swore to uphold as a ‘principle’ i.e. never to knowingly support crime or criminal activities of people they represent etc and/or to only provide support to those who are genuinely believed to be at risk through poor or misrepresentation of their case and/or outlining specific duties of McKenzie Friend such as; giving their client a chance to be heard, making sure their legal rights are upheld, making sure the evidence they present is heard, accepted as valid and taken into consideration.
I think the McKenzie Friend can be valued by Courts etc., as a truly independent addition to the Courts in the sense, they are known to operate on strength of vocation and not for any personal gain, purely, in the interests of seeing that justice is done and, therefore, there is ‘merit’ shown just in the fact that a McKenzie Friend has agreed to participate, in cases they take on.
It would be good, if there were an organisational data-base of McKenzie Friends (kept under data-protection Act), with CRB (or whatever it is now) checks and with details of their professions and/or qualifications, which a Court can refer to if necessary.
Maybe, McKenzie Friends could establish a course of study for new initiates? Maybe they could apply for and receive, some Government funding for those courses, as ‘compensation’ to the public for the fact that Legal-Aid is now denied to most people and more are relying on McKenzie Friends.
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It certainly would be good if a database was kept if users were able to critique individual Mc Kenzie Friends.
There should also be a list availiable to choose from as the outset of proceedings not at the end as is often the case!
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I agree.
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