Closing the gate: family lawyers as gatekeepers to a holistic service

Abstract

In 2001, the Legal Services Commission (LSC) introduced a new pilot, the Family Advice and Information Network (FAInS), which recognised that family law clients typically face a cluster of legal and non-legal issues. Family lawyers involved in FAInS were encouraged to address a client’s legal problems, and then refer the client to other services for assistance with non-legal issues. In this way, family law clients were to be offered a holistic service, with the lawyer acting as a ‘case manager’ who helped match services to their client’s individual needs. This article presents data drawn from an evaluation of FAInS, and shows that lawyers did not regularly refer their clients to other services, with referrals largely being limited to mediation. We conclude that family lawyers are not necessarily the most appropriate gatekeepers, and propose a number of alternatives for providing a multi-agency approach to resolving family law issues.

Ex-prisoners’ Need for Legal Aid in Denmark

“…One approach would be to identify the most appropriate gatekeeper that could refer clients to the most appropriate legal and non-legal systems. Melville and Laing (2010) have shown how family lawyers, despite their awareness of the clients' cross-legal and non-legal problems, and their specific training in directing clients to other legal or non-legal assistance, still avoided referring them to other services and generally found it difficult to place non-legal issues within a legal framework. Without abandoning the multi-agency approach Melville and Laing, however, concluded that lawyers may not be the most suitable gatekeeper of different legal and non-legal support services.…”

“He did everything he possibly could for me”: medical malpractice claimants’ experiences of lawyer–client relations

“…Lawyers have been shown to restrict the engagement of clients to the provision of factual information, limit discussion to a narrow focus on legal issues, only involve clients in decision-making when it is absolutely necessary, and present a limited range of options (e.g. Blumberg, 1967;Skolnick, 1967;Rosenthal, 1974;Hosticka, 1979;Bogoch & Danet, 1984;Simon, 1988;Mather et al, 1995;McConville & Mirsky, 1995;Pepper, 1995;Michelson, 2006;Kozin, 2007;Melville & Laing, 2008, 2010.…”