LITIGIOUS: collaboration less common in Manchester and Leeds


Divorce lawyers and clients in the north are more litigious than those in the south, according to research by national firm Mills & Reeve.



The research was published as family solicitors were told that social networking websites such as Facebook are likely to become the latest weapon to be used in divorce proceedings.



A survey of family departments in Mills & Reeve offices across the country revealed that matrimonial solicitors in Leeds were most likely to resort to litigation on behalf of divorcing clients, while those in Cambridge were most likely to use mediation.



The data, which looked at 280 cases across the firm's offices in Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, London, Manchester and Norwich, found that 46% of divorce cases in Leeds involved litigation, compared with just 19% in Cambridge. Manchester was the second most litigious city, followed by Birmingham, where 40% of cases used the courts process. Some 62% of cases in Cambridge were resolved by correspondence with divorcing parties or roundtable meetings.



Joanna Grandfield, a family barrister in the Leeds office of Mills & Reeve, said: 'We may be more litigious in the north, but that's on the turn. The collaborative approach is a relatively new phenomenon, but as more people are training as collaborative lawyers, awareness will increase.'



Meanwhile, an east Lancashire solicitor has predicted that social networking sites will become the next tool to be used in divorce proceedings. Antonia Love, head of family law at the Blackburn office of Farleys, said flirtatious and suggestive messages sent using websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo could be used to support cases where unreasonable behaviour is cited in divorce.



'People are often lulled into a false sense of security when emailing,' she told the Gazette. 'They write things they may not put down on paper in the belief that it is harmless and their partner will never see it, but with shared computers that's not always the case.'



Catherine Baksi