The Family Law Bill has attracted huge controversy during its parliamentary passage.

What will it mean to practitioners and their clients once implemented?The Bill introduces a no-fault ground for divorce.

However, at the same time, it increases the role of conduct in disputes over finances and children, and in applications for domestic violence injunctions.

To obtain a divorce, individuals must receive divorce information and then complete a 12 to 18-month period for consideration and reflection.

Legal aid will be available for mediation, and part of the Bill amends the law on domestic violence.The Law Society's family law committee has supported the introduction of no-fault divorce since 1979 and has also long called for the introduction of legal aid for mediation and reform of the law on domestic violence.

The Society has lobbied hard to seek improvements to the Bill.

However, amendments have taken it further and further away from its original aims: the introduction of no-fault divorce, simplified procedure and a reduction in costs.

These changes led the committee unanimously to withdraw support from the Bill as it was thought that it would result in a divorce law worse than the present one.Petitioners will have to attend one-to-one divorce information meetings; those eligible for legal aid will also have to attend a meeting with a mediator.

After this, there will be a three-month wait before a petition can be lodged.

During this time marriage guidance can be sought if the parties so wish.They will find that the period for consideration and reflection operates rather like a game of snakes and ladders; just when they believe they have finished, they may have to start again.

For instance, if they are too slow in settling their financial arrangements, they will have to recommence the period.Provisions in the Bill may lead to increased manipulation of the parties and their children.

This may occur because of the new emphasis on conduct, the extension of the hardship bar to cover children and the requirement that arrangements for the future have to be settled before a divorce can be granted.Full implementation of the Bill will require considerably increased resources.

Without this, not enough marriage guidance counsellors, divorce information providers and mediators will be available to provide individuals with the services they will be told to seek out.

Those on legal aid will not be able to obtain representation without first having an interview with a mediator to assess suitability for mediation.

The outcome of that meeting will be reported to the LegalAid Board, which will decide what services it will fund.Just when practitioners were expecting a simplified law reducing the influence of fault, they will be faced by the opposite.

No doubt they will be kept busy by anxious clients needing advice on the new legislation.

Lawyers will have to make significant adjustments to their way of working to take account of the new and expanded services that are to be provided and some, no doubt, will want to train to provide those services as an alternative or add-on to the traditional role.

The most alarming aspect of the reforms from the practitioner's point of view will be the threat of capped budgets limiting the amount of advice, representation and mediation available to clients.It is unclear whether the new divorce law will be a blessing or a curse.

However, it seems likely that over the next two years solicitors will be busy helping those clients who wish to divorce now rather than face the vagaries of the new law.