Your Case. Your Responsibility.

If you're representing yourself, or working with a McKenzie Friend, it's easy to assume that the people supporting you are steering the ship. They're not. You are.

Here's something worth sitting with. Your McKenzie Friend, your solicitor, your barrister — they advise, draft, flag, and guide. But the decisions in your case are yours to make, and the consequences of those decisions are yours to live with. You are the one whose children, whose finances, whose future are on the line. No one else carries that weight.

That difference matters. It means you cannot hand over full control and expect someone else to carry the responsibility the way you would. Your legal reps and your McKenzie Friend are there to advise, draft, flag, and guide. They are not there to replace your judgment on the one case that affects your life, your finances, your children, your future.

Being responsible for your case means a few concrete things:

• You read what's sent to you, not just skim it.
• You ask questions when something doesn't make sense, before a deadline, not after.
• You understand what your McKenzie Friend can and cannot do. A McKenzie Friend can support, draft, and advise you in court, but cannot conduct litigation or address the court on your behalf in most cases.
• You keep track of your own deadlines. Don't assume someone else is watching the calendar for you.
• You make the final call. Your representatives give you options and advice. The decision on how to proceed is yours.

This isn't about distrust. Good legal representatives and good McKenzie Friends want you engaged, not passive. A litigant who stays across their own case, who asks, who checks, who pushes back when something feels wrong, is easier to help and gets better outcomes.

You sought support because you needed it. That's sensible. Just don't confuse having support with handing over the wheel.

Having a solicitor does not change this

This principle applies just as much if you have a solicitor as it does if you're a full litigant in person. Instructing a solicitor buys you legal expertise, advocacy, and someone who knows the process. It does not buy you the right to switch off.

A solicitor acts on your instructions. That means the decisions in your case — whether to accept an offer, whether to push for a hearing, what to disclose, what position to take on the children or the finances — are yours to make. Your solicitor advises you on the options and the risks. They do not decide for you, and if they act without your clear instructions, that's a problem for them, not a substitute for your involvement.

You are still responsible for:

• Reading what your solicitor sends you, including draft statements, correspondence, and orders — not just skimming and assuming it's fine.
• Giving instructions promptly. A solicitor waiting on you to confirm something is a deadline slipping.
• Checking that your Form E, statement, or disclosure is accurate. Your solicitor drafts from what you tell them. If you give incomplete or wrong information, the document is still wrong, and it's still yours.
• Understanding the costs you're accumulating and asking questions if you don't. Costs orders and unpaid bills are your liability, not your solicitor's.
• Knowing what's actually been agreed or ordered at each hearing, rather than assuming your solicitor will remember every detail for you months later.
• Raising concerns early if you disagree with advice or don't understand it. A solicitor working from your silence isn't the same as a solicitor working from your agreement.

If something goes wrong in your case — because a deadline was missed, because disclosure was incomplete, because an order was signed that you didn't fully understand — "my solicitor was handling it" does not undo the outcome. The court holds parties to their orders regardless of who was instructed to act for them. A good solicitor will keep you informed and ask for your input. But it is still your job to engage with that, not to assume it's being taken care of somewhere out of sight.

Having representation should make you better informed, not less involved.

So how do you actually organise your own case?

Staying in charge only works if your paperwork and your timeline are under control too. A few practical habits make a real difference.

Keep one case file, on paper or digitally, and put everything in it. Every application, every order, every letter from the other side, every email to your rep or McKenzie Friend. Courts expect litigants in person to be able to lay hands on the right document quickly, and a scattered inbox makes that impossible when you're under pressure.

Learn the difference between an order and a direction. An order is the court's decision. A direction tells you what practical step to take before the next hearing, such as filing a statement or disclosing a document by a set date. Treat directions as hard deadlines, not suggestions.

Build a simple timeline as the case moves. Hearing dates, filing deadlines, what was ordered at each stage. When a case runs over many months, memory is not reliable enough on its own.

If your case involves a hearing bundle, know the rules early rather than scrambling before the hearing. Family court bundles now follow a specific practice direction (PD27A) on what must be included and how it should be structured, and the court has published dedicated guidance for people representing themselves. Ask your McKenzie Friend or rep whether a bundle is needed for your hearing and who is responsible for preparing it.

Before each hearing, check the notice of hearing for the case number, court address, date and time, and confirm nothing has changed the day before. Take your papers, a pen, and paper for notes. Write down what's said and what's ordered — you will want it afterwards.

None of this replaces legal advice. It just means that when someone asks you a question about your own case, you can answer it.

This post is general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Always check your own case's specific requirements and deadlines.