Lucy Reed appointed to Family Court Transparency Implementation Group

On the 6th December 2021, the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane announced the membership of The Transparency Implementation Group (or ‘TIG’). TIG has been created in order to implement the recommendations of the President’s Transparency Review, which was published in October. Those recommendations were for wide ranging cultural and practical reform to enhance the openness of Family Court proceedings whilst appropriately protecting the confidentiality of any children concerned. The committee is expected to begin work soon.

Family law barrister, Lucy Reed gave oral evidence to the President’s Transparency Review back in March this year, and has been appointed as the legal blogger for TIG.  Lucy is the chair of legal educational charity The Transparency Project and has a longstanding interest in issues of publicity and privacy in the Family Courts. Lucy is also co-author of Transparency in the Family Court – Privacy and Publicity in Practice (Bloomsbury Professional Press 2018), with Dr Julie Doughty and Paul Magrath. Lucy has been blogging about family law matters since 2007 – visit www.pinktape.co.uk. She has been observing court hearings, seeking permission to report and publishing blog posts about her observations via the legal blogging pilot since 2018, having first proposed the pilot to the Family Procedure Rules committee in 2017 on behalf of the Transparency Project. The legal blogging pilot provisions have recently become a permanent feature of the Family Procedure Rules.