Family lawyer invites Hanson to spend ‘a week in my shoes’

A Brisbane family lawyer has challenged senator and fellow Queenslander, Pauline Hanson, to learn about the “real world of family law” by spending a week in court.

Melissa Coade • 12 October 2016 • NewLaw

Family lawyer invites Hanson to spend ‘a week in my shoes’

Jennifer Hetherington (pictured), an accredited family law specialist based in Brisbane, has offered to school One Nation senator Pauline Hanson on the realities of the system.

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“Rather than stand up in the Senate and deliver an ill-informed rant against family lawyers, try spending a week in my shoes. Come with me to the family courts and experience first-hand what we have to deal with,” Ms Hetherington said.

She referred to Ms Hanson’s attack on the family law courts as “Senate diatribe” and said the politician showed “astonishing ignorance”.

The senator’s derisive maiden speech in the upper house last month drew the ire of family lawyers across the nation. Ms Hanson dedicated a portion of her speech to describe the family law system as “unworkable”, “in desperate need of change” and as having worsened in the past 20 years.

“Ms Hanson’s portrayal of lawyers in a negative light, especially when it comes to divorce, depicting them as just money-grabbers, was personally and professionally insulting,” Ms Hetherington said.

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“The family lawyers I have dealings with agree that compassion, cooperation and consideration should drive us throughout the divorce process. Ultimately our duty is to the court and to the child, first and foremost.”

Ms Hanson went on to suggest in her maiden speech that family law practitioners are in it for money alone.

“Family law would be the most discriminatory, biased and unworkable policy in this country,” Ms Hanson said.

“[Parents], please put your differences aside, make your peace and come to agreements outside of law courts. The only ones to gain are the legal professions, who are rubbing their hands together watching the thousands of dollars coming their way,” she said.

Now the controversial One Nation politician has the opportunity to spend a week at the coalface of family law. Ms Hetherington is offering the senator “a detailed, first-hand briefing on family law issues”. The lawyer says her invitation to experience “the real world of family law” is sincere.

“Ms Hanson may gain a more balanced awareness of family law issues rather than the emotive, inaccurate perceptions she currently has.

“Does she know that on a typical day we could see [up] to 30 matters listed on interim hearing days, with only seven hours available for hearings? That only allows about 14 minutes per family.

“Our nation’s children deserve more than 14 minutes of justice, but the government won’t pay for it,” she said.

In addition to more judges and much-needed extra funding for the courts, Ms Hetherington believes structural reforms to family law should reconsider Australia’s multi-layered court system and be informed by the model used in New Zealand.

“In New Zealand they use a unified family court to decide everything, which is faster and more cost-efficient,” she said.

Anonymous Thursday, 13 October 2016

Lawyers need to get out of divorce. If you dont see the writing on the wall you are the dummies. People have had enough

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Gross Wednesday, 12 October 2016

Not very often I agree with Pauline Hanson, but she is absolutely correct in this instance. I started at pre-qualification in family lawyer some 5 years ago and I always remembered how shocked and dysfunctional the practice of family law is. After the breakdown of a relationship, lawyers are ready with their clocks to prolong arguments and argue over the trivial when the two people the subject of the divorce ultimately need to be out of the lawyers office and in counselling/mediation first. Family lawyers have always been seen to be the bottom of the run of the profession and its time families hurting or broken realised that there is always a much more viable alternative than sitting in a family lawyer's office.

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Clare Hain Wednesday, 12 October 2016

Yes they certainly are!If they are so caring and child focused,give the parents a break and lesson the burden by lowering your fees!

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Wayne Stringer Wednesday, 12 October 2016

With due respect to Ms Hetherington, Hanson is probably correct in this instance. Lawyers are also overpaid.

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- Anonymous Thursday, 13 October 2016
  
  Agreed. Pauline has a lot on her plate at the moment but she is going great and has tremendous support. We should expect her to start to bring issues such as the blatant anti-male bias in the Family Court system and other important related issues such as the effects of Feminism on our society front and center very soon. Once the Islamist problem is dealt with of course.
  
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  - Michael Bradley Thursday, 13 October 2016
    
    So your support for Hanson relates to her simplistic views that all of the ills of society can be fixed by a return to the White Australia Policy and the re-establishment of patriarchal control. interestingly, you hide behind anonymity, perhaps to disguise your gender.
    
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- Michael Bradley Thursday, 13 October 2016
  
  In response to the above I disagree totally with your comments re Hanson's understanding of the Family Court and the remuneration of lawyers. Ms Hanson's comments are, like her comments on other topics such as Aboriginal Australians, migrants, refugees and Islam, ill informed, simplistic and lacking in reasoned content. Hanson's appeal lies in the fact that she forms opinions on subjects that generate much emotion and then with little if any research, she purports to make her opinion known which is accepted as fact by non-critical thinkers. Her speech in which she rails against the court does not take into consideration two facts.
  
  Firstly, by the time the couple has reached the court there is little if any chance of saving the relationship. Her plaintive “Is it worth losing the family home? Is it worth the grief it brings not only to you but also to your extended families, not to mention the children? " reflects her ignorance and the fact that social scientists have compiled generous amounts of research in relation to family breakdown and the effects on children. The implication of the reports is that the children benefit from the dissolution of a destructive family environment.
  
  Secondly, her claim that lawyers are "rubbing their hands together watching the thousands of dollars coming their way", is another example of the absurdity of her commentary. Most, if not all family law practitioners earn nothing like the amounts generated in the more glamorous corporate law sectors. Further, prior to appearing in the court it is mandatory for the parties to undertake mediation. If the solution to the family issue is as simple as the claims made by Hanson claims, mediation would solve it and the process would end there. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case as the unit has generally irretrievably broken down by this stage. As for a bias by the court against males I find that claim too insulting to even comment on.
  
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