Settling disputes on web, not the doorstep (From The Northern Echo)

Settling disputes on web, not the doorstep

8:38am Tuesday 7th October 2008

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A LAWYER has set up a website that he hopes will help prevent doorstep rows between divorcing parents.

Father-of-five Mike Smith, the founder of Durham Legal Services, hopes his Footprint service will help couples to avoid acrimonious arguments that could have an effect on their children.

For £75, the passwordcontrolled system allows couples to log all contact arrangements in a virtual diary and then comment on any problems that arise.

Because nothing can be removed, it provides a warts-and-all record of contacts and confrontations.

The couple’s solicitors are also able to log on to the service, which aims to help couples that split sort out their child maintenance and contact problems themselves.

Mr Smith, 44, from Consett, County Durham, has spent four years and invested £70,000 on the software.

He is now happily married, but came up with the idea when, as a father-offour, he returned from serving as a soldier in the first Gulf War and went through a divorce.

Mr Smith said: “After going through my own divorce there was no tool to help mum and dad sort it out themselves. We were stuck with courts and solicitors.

“The Footprints system lets you communicate without being in front of each other.

“If a mother is annoyed because a father is regularly late picking up his child on Fridays, she can log this.

He may respond by saying heavy traffic is always a problem that evening.

“Then, while apart, the couple can think rationally about this and make a new arrangement to resolve the problem.

“By introducing some distance and logic into the matter it avoids the kind of damaging doorstep rows which can leave children confused and afraid.”

Mr Smith also hoped it would help keep couples out of court.

He said: “It makes sense.

There are a number of cases I have gone to as a lawyer and when I have managed to speak to the other side I have gone back to my client and they have said that is all they wanted.”

After leaving the Army Mr Smith graduated from Durham University with a law degree and set up a child support advice service from the cupboard under the stairs of his council home, which he went on to establish as Durham Legal Services.

More information is available from Durham Legal Services on 01207- 693966. The company’s website is childsupport advice.co.uk

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