Using professional practice experience to guide family law reform

This article explores the possibility of using professional practice experience as a basis for family law reform. It draws on a recent Australian study which is seeking to use an understanding of everyday practice in the family law system to generate a coherent child focused decision-making framework for children's care arrangements that can be used by all professionals within the system. The study, the Children's Needs project, responded to practitioner complaints about the complexity of the current legislation and to evidence of the law's role in creating inconsistent messages about children's care needs across the system's different dispute resolution sites. This article discusses the project's potential as a law reform methodology in jurisdictions like Australia's, where recent policy developments have encouraged the use of alternative dispute resolution processes alongside changes to the law that reduce the discretion of the courts.