I often, as many of us do, find myself talking to a parent in conference. So often I hear myself saying to clients that the business of the Family Justice system is risk.
The management of risk is, fundamentally, the commodity we deal in.
But what does that mean? In that moment in the conference, for the client, it means; don’t lie, be honest, work with professionals. All these are actions or attributes that we as barristers say enable risk to be managed.
There is however a part of the puzzle that comes before the risk ‘management’ phase.
That is where those that assess the risk need to adequately define it. As practitioners we have a duty to afford anxious scrutiny to what is said to inform risk.
Increasingly, risk is poorly identified and with overworked professionals, it is beco...