There is an emphasis on all parties working together to resolve their disputes around children in the Family Court.

Before filing a non-urgent application in the Family Court the applicant must have completed Parenting Through Separation within the last two years and the parties must have attempted (or been exempted from) Family Dispute Resolution (FDR) mediation.

There is limited funding available for people who are unable to privately pay a lawyer. The government funds the Family Legal Advice Service (FLAS) for pre-court legal advice.

This advice is broken into two stages and is discussed in detail further here.
The first Court event is normally an issues conference – where a Judge can make orders or directions, or decide which ‘track’ the case is to proceed on.

​The majority of matters will proceed along the standard track: an application is filed, an issues conference is held with a Judge and the matter is then likely to be directed to a settlement conference if the Judge believes the matter is capable of resolution. If there is no agreement at the settlement conference the matter will likely be set down for a hearing.

The next court event is likely to be a directions conference to seek further directions necessary to ready the matter for a hearing. This includes specialist reports like psychologists reports or social work reports.

Legal aid funding is strictly limited to providing legal advice and undertaking legal work on a file. Legal work is any work necessary to progress the matter through court. It does not include undertaking negotiations around matters that cannot be enforced in a parenting order, for example when one party is late to a changeover.

The family justice system is complex. You are entitled to make applications yourself and to represent yourself in court but be warned: this is not as straightforward as it seems. Get legal advice from a specialist family lawyer (like us!) if you can.​ You can call us on 0800 339 223 any time.