Family Law

Updated FCFCOA Forms

The following forms have been updated to the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia version: [Read more…] about FED – Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCOA) Family Law forms, kits and brochures

As per the Courts’ recent announcements, the amalgamated Family Court of Australia and Federal Circuit Court of Australia will commence on 1 September 2021.  While we await publication of the Rules, we can advise as follows in relation to matter types and forms in the interim:

MATTER TYPES:

The following updates have been made in Family Law matter types and will be available from 1 September 2021:

New Card table – Child Court Expert card will replace Family Consultant card

New Salutations – addition of Senior Judicial Registrar, Judicial Registrar and Deputy Registrar to the salutations list

Critical Dates – the following matter types have also been updated with additional critical dates to reflect the new case management pathway of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia:

Property & Children, Children and ICL matter types:

• Genuine Steps Certificate
• First Court Event
• Child Impact Report
• Compliance and Readiness Hearing
• Trial Management Hearing

Property/Financial Settlement matter types:

• Genuine Steps Certificate
• First Court Event
• Compliance and Readiness Hearing
• Trial Management Hearing

HOW DO I GET THE UPDATES IN MY EXISTING MATTERS?

To receive the updates for existing matters, or to amend your Recurring Matter template, you should:

1. refresh your matter by changing the matter type and changing it back again (be assured all of your data will remain); and
2. if required, update your original precedents if any of them contain the Family Consultant table – note: there is no need to manually change this field as you can do this with the Replace References feature in LEAP.

Once the Rules have been published, we will be in a position to make any further changes to matter types that may be required.  If you would like to provide feedback in this regard, please do so here.

FORMS:

As the Court have been unable to provide advanced copies of the new forms, the LEAP Forms will be updated and released during the 90 day grace period (where the Courts have advised that they will continue to accept existing versions of the forms until the end of the transition period).

Basic form changes will be updated and released as and when the new forms are received from the Courts. However, as the majority of our forms (e.g. Financial Statement and Application for Consent Orders) contain complex developer coding, these forms will require greater time for the updates to be made.

REMOVAL OF OLD FORM VERSIONS:

Recently, we advised that we would retire the legacy versions of these forms on 31 August 2021.  Therefore the following old form versions will be removed after 31 August 2021:

• Financial statement (OLD) LL-FED-FLC-520 (Family Court of Australia)
• Financial statement (OLD) LL-FED-FLC-620 (Federal Circuit Court of Australia)
• Application for consent orders (OLD) LL-FED-FAM-024

Further updates will be published on the LEAP Forms Blog and more details regarding the Family Court merger are also available on the By Lawyers Obiter site.

In early June we announced the release of our new Family Law forms using the LEAP for Word addin.  Part of that release provided new versions of:

Given the merger of the Family and Federal Court commencing 1 September 2021, we are continuing with our plan to retire the legacy versions of these forms on our target date of 31 August 2021.  It is unfeasible for us to maintain two versions of forms, particularly given the forthcoming merger which will result in forms requiring updating over the 90 day grace period from 1 September 2021.

VERSION FIXES RELEASE NOTES

Below is a list of fixes that have been made to the current live versions since the original June 2021 release:

Application for Consent Orders

• Collapsible sections retain state after saving
• Add no-store to index.html (resolves issue requiring users to force update addin to view latest app changes)
• Q24 Sections for up to 4 children display in both addin and precedent
• Q53 Outside border around Respondent credit card cells
• Q63 Comma in the gross value of the Superannuation interest if figure is in thousands
• Q65d in form displays NIL in document if Q65 in app is answered No
• Q68 Font size for % corresponds with font size of preceding number
• Q73 Addition of description field
• Q75 Total (both Applicant and Respondent columns) in Q75 adds up the figures added in Q74
• Cells for Applicant 2 and Respondent 2 no longer display if there is only 1 Applicant/1 Respondent in matter

Financial Statement

• Collapsible sections retain state after saving
• Q37 Fix of reversal of values for fields: Name & branch BSB, Account holder & number
• Q44 Total calculates figures correctly including Q39

FURTHER RESOURCES

Watch our dedicated LEAP University course, Family Law forms using LEAP for Word add–in.  You can also view our Information Sheets on using the Financial statement (NEW) and Application for consent orders (NEW).

For more information on the new LEAP for Word add-in, read our article on the Help Centre or alternatively start a LiveChat with one of our dedicated HelpDesk consultants. 

The following Family Law form has been updated:

• Questionnaire – parenting [LL-FED-FAM-077]

The following form has been updated:

• Notice of child abuse, family violence or risk – Form 4 [LL-FED-FAM-308]

The following Family Law brochures have been updated:

• Court Fees (Family Law) – [LL-FED-FLC-541]; and
• Court Fees – [LL-FED-FLC-641]

We’re pleased to announce that LEAP’s Family Law forms are now supported by our new LEAP for Word automation using Microsoft’s latest add-in innovations. 

The LEAP for Word add-in will make it easier than ever for you to automate forms directly within a document. The updated forms are intuitive and have simple data–entry interfaces.

We are also proud to present a completely revised and improved Financial statement (NEW) and Application for consent orders (NEW). For your convenience, the legacy Financial statement and Application for consent orders will remain for 3 months.

Watch our new dedicated LEAP University course, Family Law forms using LEAP for Word add–in, to learn how you can make the most out of this new innovation. The course covers: 

• Installing the LEAP for Word add–in 
• Critical Family Law matter details to optimise form automation 
• Demonstration of the add-in functions using various Family Law forms including the Financial statement (NEW) and Application for consent orders (NEW)

You can also view our Information Sheets on using the Financial statement (NEW) and Application for consent orders (NEW)

The following form has been reviewed and updated:

• Financial summary – [LL-FED-FCC-150]