Courts that take a more holistic approach to the tangled and troubled lives of those who come before them already exist in the UK, most notably the Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC), set up by pioneering judge Nicholas Crichton.

Parents whose children are at risk of being taken into care due to their drug or alcohol addictions, and who are willing to sign up, take part in a 26-week intensive detox, treatment and therapy programme, during which they have fortnightly meetings with the judge dealing with their case.

An evaluation of FDAC last year (Judith Harwin et al, Introducing the main findings from: Changing Lifestyles, Keeping Children Safe: an evaluation of the first Family Drug and Alcohol Court in care proceedings, Nuffield Foundation/Brunel University, May 2014) found that 35 per cent of mothers who went through the programme kicked their addictions and had their children returned to them, compared with 19 per cent of mothers who went through ordinary family courts. Apart from the benefit to the families involved, this kind of approach is likely to lead to significant savings for the public purse if children are saved from going into care.

This holistic approach to helping those with legal problems seems like something of a no-brainer. What is perhaps more remarkable is that, despite swingeing cuts to legal aid, it is being practised by some innovative lawyers, who seek to address all of their clients’ needs, not simply their immediate legal ones.

One such firm is A&N Care Solicitors. Set up in February 2012 by specialist family solicitors Helen Alder and Liz Newbold, it was a finalist in last year’s Legal Aid Practitioners Group Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards, where it was up against bigger and longer-established providers. The LALY judges praised the organisation for its innovation and vision in providing an all-round service, combining expert legal representation with support for other aspects of clients’ lives.

A&N Care is a specialist children and family firm, providing help in care proceedings, domestic violence, child arrangement orders, forced marriage and international child abduction cases.

Headquartered in Sheffield, the firm has offices throughout Yorkshire and Derbyshire as well as in London, where it has an international child abduction specialist.

Its 20 staff include eight lawyers, who between them open around 25 new cases a month, the majority (80 per cent) of which are publicly funded.

So far, so ordinary. But as the firm’s client care manager, Samantha Totty, says: ‘We go that little bit further.’

The founding directors – Alder, a former social worker with expertise in substance misuse, and Newbold, a former local authority solicitor – were keen to set up a practice that provided a holistic service to clients, so that they not only received the best legal advice and representation, but were supported in their day-to-day lives.

Alder says: ‘The thing that was most important to us, particularly in care proceedings, was to make sure clients had good representation and support, whatever that meant – whether it be to ensure the child remained with them, to return the child to them, to facilitate the child being looked after by other family members, or to help them accept that the child was going to be placed for adoption.’

Recognising the fact that clients often have multifaceted and complex needs, including drug and alcohol addiction, homelessness, relationship problems and educational difficulties, Alder and Newbold developed links with local agencies and organisations that offer support in addressing these needs.

Clients are referred to agencies as soon as possible in order to help achieve the best result in their case and to help them take control of their lives and build a more positive future, even where the outcome may not have been what they had hoped for.

Last year, the firm introduced the post of client care manager, whose task is to facilitate links with the appropriate non-legal agencies in order to give the clients the best possible chances of dealing with their issues and addressing the concerns raised by social services.

‘In care proceedings in particular, we very much want to start helping people before proceedings have started. The government’s 26-week timetable in these cases does not allow much time for parents to demonstrate that they can make changes to their lives,’ says Alder.

‘If we can get involved early enough, we can start to put the mother’s case during her pregnancy.’

But it is not always about stopping a child being removed or getting them returned to the family. In some cases, says Alder, it is about helping the family cope with the fact that their child is going to be adopted and ensuring they get the necessary post-adoption support.

Agencies are under no statutory obligation to provide support to mothers whose children have been removed, either to help them deal with the trauma of losing a child, or to make changes that would make them more capable of looking after any subsequent children. Researchers suggest this is one reason why so many mothers have one baby after another taken into care, as the underlying issues are often not dealt with. In one case cited in a study by Lancaster University (Prof Karen Broadhurst et al, ‘Connecting events in time to identify a hidden population: birth mothers and their children in recurrent care proceedings in England,’ British Journal of Social Work, December 2015, pp2241–2260), one woman had had 16 children removed by the family court. The report also found that one in four women who have already had one child taken into care will go on to have further children removed; when the mother is a teenager, the figure is one in three. Often, these bereft mothers get no support to help them come to terms with their children’s removal, or with understanding the reasons. Alder says: ‘We link up parents who have had their children removed with agencies that can give them support, for example helping them to draft a goodbye letter.’

The majority of the work done by Totty, the client care manager, is not chargeable; it is a cost that is borne by the firm. It receives no grant or other funding to pay her salary.

But, insists Alder, even at the time of reduced legal aid fees, it is a financial hit that the firm is willing to take.

‘Most of what Samantha does cannot be charged to the file, but our hope is that if we give a good service clients will come back to us and our reputation will grow,’ she says.

‘A lot of other firms do excellent client care; what we have done is set up in a way that gives it a formal structure to ensure client care is central to what we do.’

Anecdotal evidence (see box) suggests their approach is paying off, at least for clients. But Totty says: ‘I wouldn’t want to suggest we work miracles. The success stories we have are when clients are committed and motivated to change and can put their child’s needs before their own.’

Just for Kids Law, set up in 2006 by barrister Shauneen Lambe and solicitor Aika Stephenson, adopts a similar approach to A&N but in the context of children involved in the criminal justice system.

Lambe sees similarities in the orthodox approaches taken in both the civil and criminal justice systems, which she says fail clients. ‘You may have a good result in court, but often without solving the underlying problems.

‘Everybody is working in silos, taking responsibility for their own little part and doing their own job, but without looking at the whole.’

One key difference between Just for Kids Law and A&N is that the former is a charity, and so eligible to apply for funding from grant-giving organisations to cover the cost of the non-legal services it provides. Many such grants are not available to private firms. However, in the light of legal aid cuts, the Legal Education Foundation and other funding providers are now working on developing models that would allow firms to easily set up charitable arms, which would mean they could apply for grant funding.

LAPG director Carol Storer cautions that however valuable this kind of holistic service may be, with the current funding situation, it won’t be an option for all firms: ‘Many legal aid lawyers have given lots of their time to their communities and to other organisations over the years.

‘It is great when this can be done, but, in view of low profit margins, many practices are having to cut back on this sort of approach. With legal aid cuts profoundly affecting people’s ability to obtain help and advice, A&N Care are providing an extremely valuable service.’ ■