We were delighted to welcome delegates to our Edinburgh office for the return of our biennial Family Law Conference on 1 October 2025. Thankfully, the rather dreich view of Edinburgh Castle did not dampen the spirits of our guests, nor our speakers.
Most family law cases are resolved through a blend of excellent communication and the generation of creative ideas. Our conference, with the theme of Contemporary Developments in Family Law, provided a lively hub for both.
The inimitable Janys Scott KC opened our conference with Look up and look out, imploring us to consider ourselves (as family lawyers) and our clients in a global context and to consider the three essential parts of each international case: jurisdiction, applicable law and enforcement.
This was followed beautifully by Marie Clark KC with an encouragement to use creativity whilst taking care to avoid whimsy and fanciful thinking. Scottish legislation in respect of financial provision on divorce is intended to be elastic in order to achieve the over-arching aim of fairness. We particularly enjoyed Marie’s line that an absence of a prohibition is a permission in itself; it is with such thinking that our law will stretch and evolve.
Dr Eve Poole OBE gave hope to family lawyers by telling us how “junk code” (including our emotions, sixth sense and gut feel) will save our careers. In an era where artificial intelligence is at the forefront in our thinking, it is these skills and our sense of judgement which are near impossible to emulate, however intelligent the programming. It is here that we can really add value for our clients.
We then delved into the world of neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism, ADHD and foetal alcohol development disorder with Dr Sonia Gleeson. It is crucial that we are live to the different ways in which neurodiversity can impact on the lives of our colleagues, our clients and their children.
The impressive duo of Professor Gillian Black and Isabella Ennis KC set out the current civil and criminal remedies available to victims of domestic abuse and considered ways in which these remedies might evolve to deliver better outcomes and protections.
Finally, Professor Kenneth Norrie analysed with precision and care the controversial Supreme Court Ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers and the interaction between the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and Equality Act 2010 at the same time reminding us of the need to approach divergent views with tolerance.
Our delegates enjoyed the diversity of our speakers and we were delighted that so many of them remained at the tail end of the day to network with each other (thank you, Big Bite Catering, for the canapes!) and to discuss the many issues which were covered. In an area of the law such as ours, where “success” cannot be measured in a binary way, it is opportunities like this to share knowledge which will truly assist our clients and their families.
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