On Friday afternoon, I sat down (virtually) with Family Barrister Anna Walsh of Coram Chambers to discuss her week.
We spoke about the type of work that Anna does, what a typical week looks like as a virtual Barrister and how lockdown has affected her practice. A big thank you to Anna for taking the time to speak with me and I hope you as the reader find this useful and informative.
Anna's Practice
Family law, although a niche practice area of its own, has so many different avenues that one can specialise in. For example, matrimonial finance, divorce proceedings, private child law, public child law and court of protection work. So, I started off by asking Anna if she could describe the type of family work that she specialises in.
I specialise in children law and within that cases involving domestic violence, different forms of abuse, non-molestation orders and occupation orders. I don't do money work or divorce. My work is predominantly around representing local authorities, parents, children and interveners (foster carers, aunts, uncles) in public law proceedings. I also do some adoption work and some private law children work. Private law proceedings are often about couples who can't agree on the arrangements for their children. But, for the most part I specialise in care proceedings where there are complex issues regarding sexual abuse, violence and cases which involve a more medical element.
Anna went on to tell me that she had previously worked as a Nurse before coming to the Bar, and so her medical history gives her a somewhat unique advantage in conducting care cases which involve a medical element.
On the back of this, Anna and I discussed that family work is very broad in its reach, sometimes involving medical issues, psychiatric complications and learning difficulties. It is also varied because there are so many different types of relationships, some married and divorced, some cohabiting, some same sex-couples and so each type of relationship can produce very unique issues. For example, surrogacy is a large area of dispute concerning same sex couples.
We then delved straight in to Anna's week and what she had been up to.
Monday
8-10am: On Monday, Anna was involved in a private law hearing in the morning. Anna told me that this started around 10am, but that she started work around 8am and did some further reading of the papers in preparation for the hearing.
10am-1pm: This hearing took place remotely via Microsoft Teams and was fairly short, finishing around 1pm. This hearing primarily concerned an application by a father to change the interim contact arrangements between him and his children. Anna acted for the mother in the case, whom the children currently live with. Anna argued on behalf of the mother that the contact arrangements did not need to change as a social work assessment of both mother and father was ongoing and that as such, it would be premature for contact to be altered. A social worker assessment is quite plainly an assessment done by a social worker of both mother and father's ability to care for and look after the child/ren concerned. This type of assessment is very useful in private and public cases as it can help inform the court on how the child/ren should be looked after, and by who, in the long term. The Court (a family Magistrate) agreed with the mother's position, that it wold be premature to alter the interim contact arrangements.
In addition to the issue of contact, the father in this case had also made an application for a Specific Issue Order (under section 8 of the Children Act 1989), to limit the extent to which the maternal grandparents (mother's parents) could be involved in the child's life. This issue will be heard alongside the main application regarding contact following the completion of the social worker assessment.
Anna indicated to me that it was really quite unusual for parents to make an application to limit other family's involvement in the child's life. Anna went on to say;
I tend to find in private law cases that the clients are slightly more sophisticated. However, they can be slightly more entrenched in their dispute. Whereas, care clients who qualify for legal aid and where the liberty of their child is at stake are often much more open to listening to you. Care client are often much more willing to do what they can to secure the return of their children to their care. I suspect that this may be because the local authority is involved, and as such the parents have to do what is expected of them. But, overall there is definitely a different feel to private law cases in that they are often more acrimonious.
1pm-4pm: Monday afternoon then involved a number of different pieces of work for Anna. She told me that as soon as the hearing finished she wrote up the note for her instructing solicitors and spoke to them about how the hearing had gone. Anna said that she typically tries to get her note of the hearing to her professional client the same day. For those who are unfamiliar with Attendance / Hearing Notes, these are documents which lay out the details of the hearing, such as who was present, who the judge was, what time is commenced and ended and then most importantly what happened, what the judge was concerned about, what submissions were made and what decision the judge made.
Following this, Anna got stuck in to some reading for hearings she was acting in on Tuesday and Wednesday. Anna then had two advocate's meetings in the afternoon, one at 4:30pm and one at 5pm, regarding those upcoming hearings. I asked Anna to explain what those meetings are about and why they are helpful.
It is when you meet with other Barristers or Solicitors, who are working on the case, via Zoom or MS Teams and discuss the case. We tend to focus on narrowing down the issues in the case between the parties and what a draft order might look like. These meetings would typically occur by phone a couple of days before the hearing and then on the morning of the hearing, whilst waiting to be called in to court, you would further discuss the issues and what instructions you had had. It's quite unusual to have an advocates meeting the day before, as you usually have to go away and seek instructions from your solicitor following the meeting and you would be rushed to do that following at 4:30 meeting / before the next morning.
The Court has a limited amount of time and is very busy, so if you go in with a draft order setting out that 1,2,3 points are not agreed, here are my submissions on those and then points 4 and 5 are agreed, that's obviously very helpful to the Judge. They will often have many hearings before them in a day and they won't always have the opportunity to read everything.
Anna told me that her day on Monday finished around 6pm. I was shocked, it seemed so early for a busy Barrister like Anna, so I asked her more about her working hours. Anna indicated that 6pm was quite early for her to finish, but that she had done a lot of preparation work over the weekend which had put her in good stead for the week ahead. If that prep work hadn't been done, or there was more to do, Anna indicated that in fact it would often be the case that she had her supper and then continued working until about 9/10pm in the evening.
Tuesday
10am-11am: Anna started her day with a pre-hearing discussion with the lawyers working on today's case, again to discuss the issues and narrow them down.
11am-1pm: The hearing for that case then took place virtually. In this case Anna represented the mother who had recently given birth to her fourth child, all three previous children having been taken in to care and adopted. This was a public law case in which the local authority wanted to place the mother in a 'mother and baby foster placement’ to assess her care of her child. The mother did not want to move to this placement and instead wanted to stay living with her own mother. There were a number of reasons for this, including the fact that she suffers from a personality disorder, is very sensitive and didn't know if she would get on well with the other people in the foster home. The local authority and guardian argued that it was owing to the mother's difficulties that she should be moved to an objective, fair and neutral place for an assessment to be carried out.
The Court agreed with the local authority and made an order that mother and baby be moved to live with a foster carer for the duration of proceedings, and in order for an assessment to be carried out. Anna then spent most of her lunchtime (typically 1-2pm) speaking with her client, the mother, about the outcome.
When speaking to Anna about this case, she indicated that she lost the case, 'and rightly so'. I asked Anna what she meant by this and how in general it feels to lose a case in such sensitive family proceedings. Anna started off by saying that there is an advantage of working in public child law, specifically where you do a mix of work for local authorities, guardians and parents, as it means that you can view the case from all perspectives. Anna stated that as part of her prep work she often considers how she would argue the case from one of the other parties’ perspective and how that can help to solidify the submissions she wants to make for the specific hearing.
Anna went on to say that she likes to be relatively frank with her clients, but in a sensitive way. So, for example in this case Anna sat down with the mother prior to the hearing and spoke about the reality of the case and that it's likely that the court would want mother and baby to be in a safer more objective environment whilst these proceedings were ongoing. Then at lunch time, Anna spoke to her about how far she had come already in proceedings and that she was making great progress with the baby and breast feeding. Anna went on the say that: a lot of the job as a Barrister in family law, especially care work, is about bolstering vulnerable clients up, saying you can do this, look how far you've come already, I know it's going to be a change for you but I know you can do this. They often need a champion and some encouragement.
When speaking about losing cases specifically, Anna said that if you are upset by a loss it is usually because you don't think that it was fair that you lost. But, that there are some cases where it is absolutely right that you do not succeed because it wouldn't be just.
2-4pm: Anna's afternoon was mostly spent doing administrative and management work. Anna is one of the directors of her chambers and as such often has to read documents/reports and draft reports to be considered by the other directors. So, Anna spent a lot of her Tuesday afternoon working on draft reports for chambers upcoming AGM, as well as management of tenants.
4pm-7pm: The rest of Anna's afternoon/evening was spent reading up on a case for the following day and preparing a position statement for the Court. Anna indicated that position statements are supposed to be filed with the court before 11am the day before the hearing, however on this occasion she had not actually been instructed on this case until 3pm, so that deadline was impossible to comply with. I asked Anna how receptive family judges were to these types of issues. Anna stated that judges are quite flexible with timings of documents at present, given the lockdown and ability to send everything virtually and quite quickly, but that this is only usually the case if you give them a heads up. So, for example Anna would email the judge to explain that she hadn't been instructed until later on in the day, that she had only just read the papers and would have the document to the court by 9pm that evening. Anna said that judges are very friendly and reasonable if you communicate with them like this.
Wednesday
8am-1pm: Anna said that she didn't have anything case related in the morning, but she did have some management/administrative work to do for chambers again. For example, proof reading the BSB chambers return, alongside reviewing the treasurers report for approving chambers budget. Anna then went on to do some other pastoral, staff management type of work.
1pm-2pm: Anna then switched back in to case mode and had a virtual pre-trial discussion ahead of a public law hearing at 2pm.
2pm-5pm: In this case Anna was representing the local authority in a set of proceedings concerning two older children, aged 13 and 16. Anna told me that when you act for the local authority you are the individual responsible for drafting up a case summary, order, position statement etc as you are then acting for the party who has commenced proceedings. Anna was of course super organised and prepared and had got these all to the court before the hearing on Wednesday.
When discussing the details of this case, Anna expressed that this was a particularly sad case concerning an alcoholic father, who's children had been the subject of an interim care order about a week ago. The court had decided to place the children in different placements depending on their needs, one with a family member and the other in a state placement. The mother in this case was not resident in the UK and was therefore not involved in proceedings.
The case had come back before the court to re-consider the interim care order, along with a prohibited steps order, preventing the father from removing the children from the jurisdiction (which he had previously threatened to do). When discussing how the hearing progressed, Anna said: thankfully the father didn't challenge the orders, he accepted that at the moment the evidence is quite strong against his case.
Anna then discussed with me how she approaches cases like this, where children have been removed from a parent and where there are clearly issues with which the parent is struggling. One thing Anna does is address it at the start of her submissions to the court. For example, acknowledging how difficult it must be for the father to be away from his children and that the local authority is thankful that the father has chosen not to oppose the orders at this stage. Anna said that this is particularly important in these sorts of cases as it can often come across to parents that lawyers/the court are always shaming them for not doing enough, not staying off drugs/alcohol, not staying away from negative relationships etc. And that actually, it is hugely important to say to these individuals, who have had really difficult lives, that they are doing a good thing by trying to cooperate in these proceedings and acknowledging and respecting what they are doing.
Anna also stated that actually this type of acknowledgment is important where parents are connecting to these proceedings from their iPhone, at home, or in a shared accommodation for hours on end and probably with little understanding of what is going on.
5pm-7pm: Anna then finished off her Wednesday with a zoom call to the instructing solicitors for the case, to discuss the hearing, and then another advocates meeting for a hearing taking place after the Easter weekend.
Anna and I went on to discuss that actually Wednesday was quite a busy day for her and that pre-Covid, when meetings and discussions would have all been done in person, that she would not have been able to pack such a busy schedule in to one day. The potential cons of being self-employed are that you do often work late and have to pack in lots of work in 24 hours. There have definitely been benefits of Covid and working remotely, specifically that you can fit in more work, especially where travel time is taken out completely. However, Anna did rightly go on to say that although it's maybe easier virtually, that it is not as natural an interaction as opposed to being in court and talking to other counsel or clients.
Thursday
This day is probably a great demonstration of the pros of being self-employed as Anna's Thursday hearing did not start until 2pm. So, Anna took the opportunity to go on a long morning walk with her dog and not start work until 10am, which was a real treat!
10am-2pm: Anna spent the morning and start of the afternoon preparing for her hearing at 2pm, as she had not been instructed until quite late on Wednesday evening. This involved reading the papers and considering her clients instructions.
2pm-3pm: Anna then took part in this virtual hearing, concerning two polish nationals, who's child had been placed in foster care after allegations of domestic violence were made by the mother. The mother in this case also very sadly suffers from a terminal illness and is particularly unwell. The father now has a new partner who is pregnant with his child. Both parents had requested that the local authority and court re-assess the care of their child, as the father could demonstrate a change in circumstances (his new family life) and the mother sought to demonstrate that she could care for the child with the aid of an employed nanny. Anna acted for the local authority in considering what care arrangements would now been the child's best interests. The court considered that owing to the change of circumstances that a new parenting assessment would be carried out, Anna stated that this hearing and the outcome was fairly straight forward.
3-4pm: Anna told me that this was an example of a case which had been hugely delayed by Covid. This was a matter which was listed in March 2020 and the final hearing has now been set for September 2021. For those who don't know, family proceedings in England and Wales are to be dealt with in 26 weeks. However, it is clear that in the current climate and with the troubles that Covid causes this timeline is not always realistic.
4-5pm: The rest of Anna's afternoon was then spent writing up the order for the case, sending that off to all parties to approve and debriefing with the social work client and the instructing solicitor on this case. Following this, Anna had a 'virtual tea' with other members of her chambers, which they try to do every Thursday, and which they had previously done in person.
5pm: If it wasn't apparent already, Anna has a lot of other responsibilities as a director of chambers and as a result her Thursday evening was spent in an executive board management meeting on zoom, dealing with constitutional matters relevant to chambers.
Anna finished all her work at around 7pm that day, again a fairly early finish in comparison to other days and weeks.
Easter Weekend
Although the working week was over and the Easter weekend/ bank holiday had started, I did have to ask Anna what her weekend would entail. Unfortunately, it did include work. Anna said that she would be doing some reading and prep work over the weekend as she has a hearing coming up Tuesday this week and then her first in-person trial since Covid starting Thursday.
However, Anna did assure me that she would also be eating up all the Easter chocolates and enjoying the weekend sunshine!
Reflecting on Covid
To finish off my chat with Anna, we spoke about how Covid has changed her practice and whether that change would be welcomed going forward...
I think professionally, it has taken me a lot of time to get used to not going in to court. Cross-examining, using interpreters, knowing when to pause and reading body language are all incredibly difficult over the internet. You are also sitting in the same place for longer and then watching yourself, which you don't do when you're in court usually. I did this advanced advocacy course a few years ago, where they filmed you doing your advocacy and then took you to a different room and played the video to you, and when you watch it back you think god what am I doing rocking back and forth or picking up a pen and playing with it. That type of experience is now replicated all the time in virtual hearings and that can be really hard to get used to seeing yourself. The advantages are that I haven't had to travel and that's been fabulous because I spend a lot of time travelling, I can now eat all of my evening meals with my husband which is lovely. I also think many parents have found not having to travel much better, especially if you don't live near the court then travel can be really onerous and expensive.
I think going forward if there could be weeks where you do two days remotely and three days going to court, or vice a versa, that would be really good for work/life balance and I think you could achieve justice like that! For example, administrative type hearings could stay remote and then cases where an individual has learning difficulties, language difficulties or capacity issues could be dealt with in person because they really need to be in my opinion.
But, I will be glad when things start to ease a bit, I really miss people!
I think Anna's last message there is something that resonates with a lot of us, especially myself.
Well, I hope this has been an insightful read for you all, especially those of you who are considering going in to family law. It was an absolute pleasure to speak to Anna and to discuss what she has been up to in the last week.
I hope you have all enjoyed a lovely long Easter weekend and as ever thanks for reading!
Monica x