Care of Children
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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 on this page.
Lawyers are prevented from acting for parties in non-urgent parenting or guardianship proceedings until directed to do so by a Judge or if the matter is going to a hearing, so in most instances the applicant must file the Court documents themselves. While there is nothing preventing someone from taking advice from a lawyer, it is likely the client will need to attend the first Court event without representation: this is normally an issues conference for the Judge to make orders or directions, or decide which 'track' the case is to proceed on. We recommend our clients ask the Judge for lawyers to act at that time. |
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. Lawyers may act at that point if the Court directs, so it is important that an applicant or respondent asks the Judge for a direction that lawyers may act. If there is no agreement at the settlement conference the matter will be set down for a hearing and lawyers are allowed to act. 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. 
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