Considering the recent Family Solutions Group’s report: Putting Children First; The evolving role of the family law professional (March 2026)
Introduction
At the heart of family law are often children about whom we learn a huge amount, but usually never meet. We learn about their performance at school, their routine, any extra-curricular interests and any learning difficulties or disabilities they may have. We are also privy to school reports, GP notes and letters from psychologists. The way in which their parents' separation is handled, including the part we play in it, has an enormous impact on their lives going forward.
When we talk about reflective supervision for lawyers, the conversation usually centres on wellbeing, and rightly so. As highlighted in LawCare's Life in the Law 2025 Report, nearly 60% of legal professionals have poor mental wellbeing.
In this blog, however, I want to look at reflective supervision from a different perspective, and that is from the perspective of the children in our cases.
A Profession Being Asked to Evolve
In March 2026, the Family Solutions Group published Putting-Children-First-the-evolving-role-of-the-family-law-professional.pdf, with a foreword from Lord Justice Cobb. Drawing on a survey of 546 professionals and parents and almost 50 in-depth interviews, the report calls for a reappraisal of the way family law is practised.
The findings are striking. 92% of respondents agreed that family law professionals should have a responsibility to children in addition to their duty to their client, and 94% agreed that we should have a responsibility to help reduce conflict between separating parents.
The report recommends education and training, combined with appropriate reflective supervision. 79% of the professionals surveyed believed that legal professionals should have reflective supervision, yet only 38% of respondents said they currently receive it (and the authors suspect even that figure is overstated).
How Our Work Reaches the Child
Our professional duty is to our client, not to their children. That has not changed. But, as mentioned, the effect of what we do does not end with the client.
The tone of an opening letter can set the temperature of a case for months. Advice given in a first meeting can entrench a position that might otherwise have softened. A practitioner who is tired or under pressure is possibly more likely to reach for the adversarial response, and less likely to pause and ask whether there is a better route. To paraphrase child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Mark Berelowitz, who features in the report, a simple question every solicitor should ask is: are we making it easier or harder for parents to work together for the next 15 years, or possibly more?
Amelia (anonymised), a 17-year-old writer of one of the report's forewords, eloquently describes how children sense tension at home long before anyone explains what is happening, and how every professional interaction with a parent has a ripple effect on the child. Children feel it in the atmosphere at home, and in being asked, directly or indirectly, to take sides. Every unnecessary escalation is felt somewhere further down the line, and very often it is felt by a child.
In my 13 years of practising private family law, I have seen how much difference a lawyer's approach can make. Sometimes, of course, there is so much hostility that it is impossible to reduce parental conflict. I often encountered aggressive communications, which not only inflamed tensions, but also led to cases being slower to resolve, leading, in some cases, to court proceedings which could have been avoided.
There is one case in particular which springs to mind, where a family faced extremely difficult circumstances. In that case, I am confident that the entire process would have been less stressful, costly and lengthy had the solicitor on the other side adopted a more conciliatory approach. The actions undertaken by the parent as a result of that solicitor’s advice were found to cause extreme distress to the child.
What Reflective Practice Offers the Lawyer
Reflective practice gives us the space to slow down. In reflective supervision, a practitioner can step outside the pace of the working day and think about what is really happening in a case, and in their own minds.
There might be a vulnerable client that you feel sorry for, or an opponent whose correspondence provokes a strong reaction. Talking it through with a trained supervisor who understands, in a confidential and non-judgemental setting, helps us notice patterns we would otherwise miss and return to work with greater clarity. There are also beliefs that we hold, or issues that may be going on in our personal lives, that cannot help but impact our ability to carry out our role at work.
For the lawyer, the benefits are real: less is carried home and a demanding career becomes more sustainable over the long term.
What Reflective Practice Offers the Child
Crucially, the benefits do not end with us. The Family Solutions Group included questions about supervision in a consultation on child welfare precisely because it can act as "a safety net for the unrepresented child". As clinical psychologist, Dr Denise Barulis, points out, we are buffered from children by their parents, but it is the parents who lead the family dynamic, so the tone we set with them reaches the child.
A lawyer who has space to reflect is better placed to:
notice when they are being drawn into a client's conflict, and step back;
write correspondence that focusses on the issues without inflaming the relationship between the parents;
consider non-court options properly and early, rather than simply paying lip-service to NCDR and defaulting to litigation;
hold clients’ trust while gently challenging positions that may not serve their family in the long term.
None of this requires us to abandon our duty to the client. A parent who is helped to reach a workable arrangement, with less conflict and less cost, is usually better served. Most parents, when they are calm enough to think about it, want exactly that for their children.
Supporting practitioners is therefore, in part, a way of protecting the quality of the help that families receive.
Bringing Family Law in Line with Those Around Us
The Family Solutions Group observes that an expectation of reflective supervision would bring family law into line with the therapeutic professionals who support the very same families. Social workers, psychotherapists and counsellors working with separating parents and their children regard supervision as part of safe practice, precisely because their work affects other people.
The report also recognises that supervision can take different forms, individual or group, and may be provided by psychologists, therapists or lawyers trained as reflective supervisors. Whatever form it takes, it is not oversight from a more senior colleague, which is what lawyers traditionally understand supervision to mean. Reflective supervision is external and confidential, and it focuses on the practitioner's personal and professional development.
Conclusion
Putting children first does not mean losing sight of our client. It means recognising that the way we practise has consequences beyond the parents who instruct us, and taking responsibility for doing it well. Reflective practice is one of the most practical ways to achieve that. It supports the lawyer and, through the lawyer, it supports the child who is at the centre of the family.
At the Training & Supervision Academy, I offer one-to-one reflective supervision for solicitors, barristers and practitioners in other areas of law, informed by my own years in practice. If you would like to explore how supervision could support you or your team, please get in touch.