Important Legal Aid Changes April 2013

From 1st April 2013 Legal Aid will change significantly. In most areas of private family law legal aid will no longer be available regardless of financial circumstances.  There will be some limited exceptions to this, principally: Applications for injunctions for protection from domestic violence. Cases where the applicant is the victim of domestic violence, to […]

Funding Your Case

Funding Your Case.  It is always a difficult question for any client – how will I pay for it? Higgins Miller Solicitors do undertake cases funded through Legal Aid for those clients who are eligible. However next year will see massive changes which will see most cases involving children or divorce no longer eligible for […]

HOW DO I GET A DIVORCE?

HOW DO I GET DIVORCED?  At Higgins Miller Solicitors we see lots of clients who want to divorce but do not know if they can or what they need to do, so what’s the answer? Well you have to have been married for at least a year. We will need the marriage certificate or a […]

Family Justice

The Family Justice Review has today been published. Its findings include a conclusion that the family justice system currently moves too slowly and should provide a better service to the adults and children who need to use it every year. Whilst we agree that family cases currently can take far longer than they should to […]

Human Rights?

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has this weekend published an article in the Guardian vowing not to allow any watering down of human rights legislation in this country. He makes the very valid point that the human rights act is most used in this country by those who are most vulnerable and often in the […]

Fathers and families

Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday published an article in the Sunday Telegraph criticising “runaway dads” and calling for them to be stigmatised in the same way as drink drivers. He says that fathers should “financially and emotionally support their child even if they have split up from their mother” and “spend time with their kids […]

Future without Legal Aid

An independent panel has published a report into the repercussions of a future without legal aid. The panel was made up of people with no vested interest in legal aid and included a former liberal democrat MP, the Cannon of Westminster Abbey and the assistant general secretary of the trade union Unite. They heard evidence […]

Justice for All

The Government has proposed some radical changes to legal aid which we at Higgins Miller simply don’t agree with. We believe that the proposals would leave many of our clients simply unable to access legal advice at difficult times in their lives. This is unacceptable as it discriminates against people who cannot afford to pay […]

Legal Aid Debate

The debate about legal aid continues and was featured on the One show recently. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZa3Gu4vbBw&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] The Law Society are continuing their Sound Off for Justice Campaign and are looking for people willing to share their stories about how legal aid has helped them. If you would be interested in doing this please contact us and […]

Proposed Cuts to Legal Aid

Many more people than the Government has estimated will be affected if the proposed cuts to legal aid become reality. Research be the Legal Action Group shows that “the government’s prediction that 502,000 people would lose access to civil legal aid had ‘grossly underestimated’ the impact of its cuts, putting the true figure at more […]