We
provide access to independent McKenzie
Friends across the UK.
For every £10,000 you
would pay a lawyer, we aim to charge
£1,000 as an alternative, non-legal
service.
We aim to provide
a more flexible and affordable non-legal
alternative service than lawyers.
We will advise
you on what you need to know, not what
you want to hear.
We will help
reduce and manage conflict and acrimony.
We aim to bring
transparency and openness to the Family
Court Justice System.
Video : About
our service and why we set up the
McKenzie Friend Network
Our
McKenzie Friends?
Under our
referral terms:
A small number
of McKenzie Friends may have a law
background. However, the vast majority
are not legally
trained or
qualified. Our affiliate McKenzie
Friends, do not provide 'legal advice'
and do not operate as
'legal
advisors'.
Our affiliate
McKenzie Friends operate as 'lay people'
and provide support as an 'informed
friend'.
Our listed
McKenzie Friends are affiliates who
provide their service as independent
McKenzie Friends.
We invite you to
read the profiles of all our McKenzie
Friends before accepting their service.
Our McKenzie
Friends agree to comply with the guidance
of the Family Law Division.
Are we
similar to lawyers?
Absolutely
not! We do not in anyway compare
ourselves to lawyers.
Our affiliate
McKenzie Friends are not legal entities
and do not provide a legal service.
Our affiliates
provide a service based on the position
and understanding that tens of thousands
of people,
every year, go
through the court system without any
legal representation without being at any
disadvantage
If a person was
disadvantaged by not having a paid lawyer
then we would have a two tiered, broken
and unfair
system favouring those who can afford
lawyers. This is simply not the case.
The entire
system is founded on the principle of
access to justice where any person
can self
litigate without a lawyer, and without
any knowledge of law, without being
disadvantaged with
respect to the
outcome.
It is based on
this understanding that our affiliates
support people through the court system,
as laypeople,
as a non-legal
service, saving people tens of thousands
of pounds on legal fees.
Our
Guiding Principles
One of
the most empowering aspects of being a
McKenzie Friend is to have an independent
insight into the Family Law system and to
scrutinise the practices within in. My
conclusion is that all is not well.
Any expectation that a
person going through the traumatic life
event of separation should routinely pay
upwards of £15,000 for legal
representation to gain access to
children, to resolve child arrangements
or seek financial resolution, often with
the most straight forward of applications
is simply wrong and unjustified.
At a fraction of
the cost, a McKenzie Friend can support
you through a system based on practical
and straight forward procedures and to
help you build a case that reduces
conflict and focuses on the defined
determining factors and principles that
are based on common sense checklists
rather than complex legal precedents.
The closed and self
serving system that has for decades
perpetuated a myth that 'Family Law Needs
Lawyers' is now being exposed as more and
more Litigants in Person empower
themselves to take their own cases
forward. The genie is finally out of the
bottle and it isn't going back in anytime
soon.
Whilst many
professionals may have eagerly
financially prospered off the back of
their client's drawn out emotional
conflicts, for any Litigant in Person,
the way forward is to be the first to
effectively manage and reduce conflict
and to seek a reasonable resolution from
the outset.
From my extensive
practice and experience, I would without
hesitation recommend that seeking a free
consultation with an experienced McKenzie
Friend Lay Person, who mentors in
conflict management, should be your very
first step to take.'