WHEN IS CHANGE DUE

Arnie - I empathise with many of your views about the family law system being flawed and inefficient - but some of your comments about the legal contributors on this forum are unfounded.

We do on occassion get a new legal professional arrive and attempt to use the forum as a sales/marketing vehicle - but as soon as they realise that we do not permit that - they tend to leave very quickly.

The long term dedicated legal contributors on the forum are all volunteers with absolutely nothing to gain commercially. Indeed I am not even aware of which firms they work for or used to work for (in the case of the retired / semi-retired).

Your earlier comment that Wikivorce is just another law firm is incorrect - we are a support community and a social enterprise, no-one involved on the core team is from a legal background or has any legal qualifications. We are people who have been through divorce - that is how we met each other, and that is what unites us.

I think you are looking for change in the wrong places. I very much doubt that rapid change will be driven by the government, the law makers or the legal profession. I also doubt that lobbying can drive structural change in anything like a reasonable time frame.

Wikivorce is the change.

Wikivorce is driving change by:
- increasing access to free information
- facilitating the sharing of knowledge and experiences
- helping people realise that they are not in this alone
- increasing consumer choice
- driving down legal costs
- providing access to affordable services for people who no longer qualify for legal aid due to funding cuts
- increasing awareness of mediation and collaborative law
- helping to promote better solutions such as voluntary parental agreements rather than contested contact battles
etc
etc

Look at how change has been driven in other areas: flights across europe are not cheaper and more convenient than ever before because Stelios and Michael O'Leary lobbied parliament or ranted at the BA management. Change happened because the founders of Easyjet and Ryanair created a better alternative - they MADE change happen.

Wikivorce is changing the landscape of family law right now - blink and you will miss it.

Look at how change has been driven in other areas: flights across europe are not cheaper and more convenient than ever before because Stelios and Michael O'Leary lobbied parliament or ranted at the BA management. Change happened because the founders of Easyjet and Ryanair created a better alternative - they MADE change happen.

Agreed

You are doing more than anybody else or any other organisation that I know of, but I am really uncomfortable with the numerous commercial links on this site and you can dress that up however you wish but that doesn't change the reality.

Some of what I say is to provoke a reaction, not really from you but from others. I know from linkage from this site to my site just how many Legal Firms frequent these forums as I suspect you know from own web data.

I do come from a position that the legal class is fundamentally flawed and change from within is not possible, but forgive the pun, the jury is out and lets see what wiki has become and what actual change you have achieved five years from now. My fear is that your income stream is derived from the legal class and that compromises your ability to affect any significant or lasting change.

As a social enterprise, Wikivorce receives no charitable donations and no government funding [ well not yet anyway - I am trying ]. So, you are correct - we do need to generate some income to be able to afford to develop and deliver the many free services that we provide.

But we don't have to accept the status quo. We can drive innovation, widen consumer choice and improve customer service.

In 5 years time the way people access family law services will be very different than it is today - because we will drive change in that area. If we kept our scope down to just providing chat rooms and a forum, then in 5 years time solicitors would be running things in the same way that they do now. We have to get involved in the service side to drive change in that area - it won't happen on its own.

I understand all that but
Over 50,000 members
3000+ visitors a day
1 NEW visitor per minute

£1 per year membership or personally if I were in divorce I would happily pay £25 a year and I have been bankrupt since 2004, and then there are donations.

Who knows.

I know that this portal has a lot of the legal class on it and they now know my name and Mr Blah Blah's name, but how long before you are made to shut me up. I am about to light the blue touch paper with the telly tubbies it will be interesting to see if you feel the heat

And also transparency is the key, so are you planning or do you currently post your funding arrangements?

The trouble is Ian, game theory is entirely correct and nobody does something for nothing, its fuk you buddy and what's in it for me, human nature, the selfish gene, sad but true