In a bid to help simplify the often awkward and unnecessarily complex language used within the Family Courts, the President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, has announced a new set of Private Law Orders, which are designed to be user friendly.
The Orders relate to the Child Arrangements Programme (CAP), which focuses on disagreements between parents or families about arrangements concerning any children involved. It is hoped that the changes to the orders will make it easier for the growing number of self represented parents (Litigants in Person, LIPs) to understand the process and engage with it.
One of the most exciting aspects of these re-formatted orders is that they are set using templates which, we are told, should allow parents and other parties to leave the court with a copy of the order on the same day. A very welcome development, as orders can often take months to appear.
If you’d like to take a look at the drafts for these orders, you can do so by clicking the first link above (the documents are sitting at the bottom of the Jordans post, and can be downloaded).
What do you think? Are these new forms really user friendly, or do they still leave a lot of questions unanswered for families representing themselves in court?
Researching Reform 
Reading through these standard form orders, and just thinking for a moment about the increased opportunity they give to embittered litigants to argue over new points that they previous had not been aware of does not inspire confidence.
All the standardised forms for Orders in public law cases have merely lead to greater satellite litigation and delay.
The idea that litigants should leave Court with a clearly comprehensible order is to be applauded but the idea that a document stretching several pages with a few ticks beside the occasional paragraph is surely anathema to the admirable intention.
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