Overcoming the burden of a lack of funding

Hello again everyone,

Happy New Year to you all and let me say it is with a renewed sense of enthusiasm and zeal that I undertake to provide you with what I hope will be valuable, practical and user friendly information that you can all apply in your dealings with family law.

With that said let's get straight into it for my post of 2011.

Many people don't see lawyers because they are concerned about costs and in particular their ability to pay.

There are two key options if you leave your spouse and don’t have an income to pay your lawyer.

Firstly there are organisations which provide specific litigation funding for example Quantum Litigation Funding. Such companies pay your bills and get repaid in the end.

Secondly you can apply to the court for a "Barro" order. A "Barro" order allows the spouse without funds to obtain a lump sum from the other spouse to pay legal and accounting expenses.

Both of these options are widely used and provide litigants who are financially disadvantaged with the ability to fund their litigation and use the lawyer that they want to use, rather than relying on the one they can afford.

As this information may be new to most of you I would ask you to forward it to your respective networks to ensure that everyone can benefit from this information.

As always please feel free to share your comments as it is appreciated and beneficial to know how people are relating to what we are writing. As well if you have any further queries please feel free to contact Nicola Watts directly at Septimus Jones & Lee on +61 3 9613 6555