Lawyer divorces wrong couple through dropdown selection error(lawgazette.co.uk) |
Lawyer divorces wrong couple through dropdown selection error(lawgazette.co.uk) |
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However, the headline for this article is a bit misleading. It sounds like the lawyers just divorced a random married couple, and the judge refused to undo it.
But if you go through the article, and put together the clues like a game of Dog Crimes, you get the following sequence of events:
1) The wife hired a speciality divorce law firm. 2) The law firm had already completed all divorce paperwork and uploaded documents into court web system for the wife divorcing the husband. 3) The law firm accidentally selected this "case" to submit and pay for, rather than another intended case. 4) Per UK law the husband would have been officially notified of the completion of the divorce. 5) The wife was not happy about this surprise. 6) The wife's law firm went to court to undo the divorce. 7) The husband hired his own lawyers to keep the divorce. 8) Given that all the paperwork was correct filed, and one member of the couple wanted to keep the divorce the judge let it stand.
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Imagine the headaches if a life event happened in between the divorce and un-divorce. Oops.
I don’t know enough, but it looks like software engineers will be blamed in short order.
Good luck!
It’s almost like it was some adults having a laugh at others expense not realizing even making such a movie is bread and circuses
Our vanity won’t let us believe we’re just like prior generations of people with fancier technology. Just the same old idiocy, mockery, cynicism, poor effort across contexts (most of which are made up social hallucinations); poor stewards of social and environmental reality
Well, in most civilised countries; perhaps not in the most backwards of them.
And let's not be mistaken - the lawyer was negligent. Observe the grandstanding of the boss, however:
> Vardag said: 'The young lawyer who made the slip with the drop down menu on the new divorce portal is one of the best of the next generation. Not sloppy, not careless. Totally committed, extremely able. That young lawyer, our brilliant young lawyer, genuinely needs support to deal with the trauma of it all.
...Is all that posturing necessary? "...one of the best of the next generation", really? A "brilliant" lawyer making this sort of mistake, which could have been avoided had the lawyer actually paid attention?
If the junior was mistaken, there is no need for this sort of grandstanding. Negligence need not to be glossed over, or made as if it was not.
This is another reason society is better off without the people who become lawyers.
Otherwise, the victims in this case have the UK tort system available to them to seek a remedy for any damages they may have suffered. They can also just get re-married and ask the firm to cover those associated costs.
How do you suggest the lawyer fix their error?
Given that they were using online lawyers, likely that is not very much.
If this was in America, depending on the couple's total wealth and circumstances it could run into the several hundred thousand / low millions.
I don't know the laws in the UK or how that would play out there though.
For custody issues, absent extreme circumstances, custody cases don't end until at least the child turns 18. Getting an unfavorable settlement here is a problem, but likely isn't unrecoverable. Typically a judge won't modify a custody arrangement without a change of circumstance; but they do have considerable discretion.
For the financial issues; this is what lawsuits are for. If her law firm does not make her whole on their own, she should hire a legal malpractice attorney who will probably be able to convince them.
It's usually thought of to be in the interest of one (or both) parties not to finalise the divorce until a financial order is made (eg if one party dies in the period between then the other may never get assets they would have done in a financial order; or there may be tax consequences if assets end up with the wrong party for a period). In this instance it seems like this disadvantaged the former wife because she ended up divorced without a financial order in place.