Reimagining Family Law

The work of Professor Emma Hitchings has shaped and improved understanding of how the law on financial and property cases on divorce play out in practice. The Fair Shares report was published in November 2023, with five supplementary reports published over the following 14 months (Nov 2024 – Jan 2025). These reports provided comprehensive data and evidence on how the law of financial remedies on divorce in England and Wales is working in practice. The Fair Shares project collected more extensive data on financial remedies outcomes for the divorcing population than any previous study. 

Professor Hitchings’s research focuses on the ‘everyday’ financial remedy cases. Despite in the region of 100,000 couples divorcing each year in England and Wales, prior to the publication of the Fair Shares research, there was little empirical data on what actually happens in practice for most divorcing couples in relation to their property and finances. This hindered policymakers’ ability to make informed decisions about the current state of these substantive areas of family law and the family justice system. 

The Fair Shares research provides a powerful and vital source of data about the realities of the ‘everyday’ financial remedy case. For example, the research demonstrates that pension assets are largely ignored by divorcing couples and that offsetting (the most frequently used way of dealing with pensions) often does not represent a fair outcome. Findings from the study also highlight the financial vulnerability of many female divorcees in the years following divorce, particularly mothers and those in older age, compared to men. 

In December 2024, the Law Commission published its Scoping Review of the law of financial remedies in England and Wales and how it is operating, which concluded that the law governing financial remedies on divorce is in need of reform. The Fair Shares study was relied on and referred to extensively throughout the Law Commission’s report. For example, in the Law Commission’s consideration of the way in which ‘conduct’ operates in financial remedies cases, the Fair Shares findings were relied on as providing evidence to support the Law Commission’s view that it is open to question whether the current law results in fair outcomes for survivors of domestic abuse.  

Professor Hitchings’s previous work with Joanna Miles (Cambridge) provided much-needed data on the settlements reached in financial remedy cases and was not only used at judicial training events (2014, 2018, 2019-20), but the findings also provided evidence towards the development of a new national system of specialist financial remedy courts in England and Wales.  

Professor Hitchings’s earlier research on pre-nuptial agreements (2011) influenced the Law Commission’s 2014 recommendations for law reform to safeguard individuals entering pre-nuptial agreements. Hitchings’s qualitative study identified the pressure placed on individuals by their partner to sign a pre-nuptial agreement and emphasised the need for legal safeguards in any law reform which would make pre-nuptial agreements legally binding. This research was used by the Law Commission in their final report (2014).  

Professor Hitchings’s body of research has therefore produced a more informed awareness of the impact of financial remedy law by contributing to high-profile, influential debates, and by providing evidence as to the current operation of the existing law.