Information for professionals

Forms

A link to some of the most commonly used application forms in the Family Court

Practice Guidance

• By date
  • 2025
  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021
  • 2020
• By subject
  • Adoption
  • Care proceedings / Public Children Law
  • Bundles
  • Injunctions – non molestation and occupation orders
  • Financial remedies
  • Private Children Law
  • Transparency in the family court

Templates and forms

• National standard template orders
  • House Rules May 2023
  • The full library of Standard Family Orders vol. 1 (financial orders) and vol.2 (orders relating to children) can be downloaded here
• Cheshire and Merseyside public law templates
• Cheshire and Merseyside private law templates

Court and Tribunal Hearing Service (CaTH)

Civil and Family Courts across the Lancashire & Merseyside will begin publishing hearing information on the Court and Tribunal Hearings service (CaTH) from the 3rd November 2025.   

The Court and Tribunal Hearings service (CaTH) will be HMCTS’s lead service where all HMCTS public and press hearing information will be published to uphold the principles of open justice.  The aim of the service is to provide professional users, the media and the public access to hearing information in a clear and consistent way on GOV.UK.  

CaTH contains a verified user space where legal professionals and members of the media can access enhanced information that they are entitled to, but that should not be in the public domain. 

To provide smoother access for legal professional users, CaTH is integrated with MyHMCTS, the case management system for the Civil, Family and Tribunals jurisdiction and will soon also integrate with Common Platform for criminal court hearing information. 

Please find attached a user guide for Legal Professionals and members of the media, where it explains how you can create an account to view information and subscribe to hearing lists of interest.  

If you need additional support with your MyHMCTS account, please email MyHMCTSsupport@justice.gov.uk. We aim to respond to your email within 5 working days. 

Public law outline

• Public Law Outline in the Family Procedure Rules 2010 and Practice Direction 12A – click here
• Northern Circuit Local Practice Direction “Getting Back to the PLO on the Northern Circuit” issued by Mr Justice MacDonald on 16 November 2023 – click here
• The Relaunch of the PLO from the President of the Family Division on 30 November 2022 – click here

Public Law Working Group

• Public Law Working Group: Adoption Sub Group
  • November 2024 – Recommendations for best practice in respect of adoption
  • Chapter 1 Appendix A – Table of adoption case law
  • Chapter 2 Appendix A – Flowcharts
• Public Law Working Group: Supervision Orders
  • Recommendations to achieve best practice in the child protection and family justice systems: Supervision Orders April 2023
  • Annex A – Supervision Order Plan

Views from the President’s Chambers

• 15/4/25

Disclaimer: Nothing on this website constitutes legal advice and the inclusion of any other website or publication does not imply or mean an endorsement of the contents thereof. This website is maintained by legal professionals and whilst every effort is made to ensure it is kept up to date, users are advised to confirm that the links and documents provided are the most up to date versions.