‘Giving Hope to Fathers’: Discursive Constructions of Families and Family Law by McKenzie Friends Associated With Fathers’ Rights Groups

Lay Advisers in Family law Settings: The Role and Quality of Advice Provided on Social media

“…on forum updates, generic information, newspaper articles, judgements, jokes or advertisements) were excluded. As has been noted elsewhere (Smith et al, 2017;Melville 2017;Barry 2019), there tends to be a gender imbalance in the availability of MF support: there are more public forums targeted solely at fathers than those at mothers (though there may be more privately administered groups for mothers -see Mant 2020). The dataset nevertheless includes one forum for mothers to explore differences in advice provision in online spaces targeting specific family roles.…”

“…The guidance embedded in court forms is equally patchy and often not comprehensible due to complex language and lack of explicit explanations (Grieshofer et al, 2021). And although there is an abundance of other online resources, they often vary in quality of information they provide and can potentially be misleading or biased (Tkacukova 2020, Melville 2017. There are occasionally examples of user-friendly and coherent sources of information from independent charities (e.g.…”

“…On the other hand, 'family justice crusaders' or 'rogues' were categorized as problematic MFs (Legal Services Consumer Panel 2014: 21, Smith et al, 2017. They tend to be ex-LIPs who had a negative experience with the court system and some of them belong to Fathers' Rights Groups which can be aggressive in respect of mothers' rights to children (Melville 2017). For these MFs, the pursuit of the MF career thus presents an opportunity to further their personal agenda against the justice system, leading to potentially harmful ramifications for the cases of their clients.…”

“…Accessing legal advice and representation can be challenging with limited financial means. One seeming alternative to professional legal advice is to reach to social media groups and online forums, though such online support is increasingly being offered by lay advisers with unproven expertise (Smith et al, 2017, Melville 2017. The article explores the quality of advice offered in social media groups and online forums run by lay adviser to enhance our understanding of the scope, accuracy and linguistic framing of online advice provision.…”

“…Fee-charging MFs predominantly focus on child arrangement cases 4 (Smith et al, 2017, Melville 2017 as this is the area with the highest concentration of LIPs, but possibly also because the emotional nature of child related cases necessitates moral support and/or because this area of law is sometimes viewed as less technical (Lee and Tkacukova 2017), leading to some ex-LIPs starting to offer MF services (Smith et al, 2017). Despite the original definition of MFs as lay advisers offering in-court support, MF services are increasingly being offered in out-of-court settings and online environments (Smith et al, 2017, Melville 2017, Smith 2019). Yet, very little is known about the substance of the out-of-court advice provided by lay advisers in the environments which often rely on distorted facts and prejudiced information.…”