Author Description

There are many inconsistencies between how divorce law in the United Kingdom is expressed in statute and how it is actually carried out in the decisions of the higher courts. This important and engaging book, written from the perspective of a social researcher, examines these inconsistencies serving to uncover the "law in action." The authors delve into the process of divorce to answer questions that lawyers engaged in resolving matrimonial disputes must consider: What is being done here? Why? Who gains? Who loses? Through a close examination of the answers, the authors uncover an area of legal practice which has been oddly neglected in research and yet is of central importance in the negotiation and adjudication of divorce disputes. The authors discuss that the majority of financial disputes are settled by bargaining between the parties' lawyers, rather than through the adjudicatory powers of the court; they refer to this as the "hidden" area of divorce law. They convincingly argue that an understanding of this "hidden" area is instrumental to predicting the outcome of a large percentage of divorce cases.