WHEN Hong Kong's Family Law Association holds its annual meeting tonight it will release a series of guides on getting a divorce. Its officials say if your divorce isn't complicated, you could even use them to do it yourself.
Lawyers doing themselves out of business? Perhaps, but the association's chairman, family lawyer Sharon Ser, says it wants potential divorcees to be well-informed and free from as much suffering as possible - even if they decide they don't need a lawyer.
And before anyone can level the accusation, she's quick to say the guides are not encouraging people to divorce.
''We are not saying, 'go for it, divorce is the only way forward','' she said. ''We are saying, 'if it is a reality in your life that your relationship has broken down, it may be in the best interests of you and your family not to prolong the agony'.
''There might be the reaction that it seems an odd contribution from the Family Law Association in the Year of the Family to show people how to divorce. But we are not saying un-family yourselves, we are saying we want happy families. It's better to redefine roles than to squash people together who don't want to stay together.'' The guides illustrate an increasingly high profile for the Family Law Association and for this whole area of the law in Hong Kong. While family law has, for too long, been the poor relation, changes in personnel, attitude and help from some important friends are giving it a new image.
''This change is going on everywhere else in the world - to try to make life easier for family litigants,'' Ms Ser said. ''Here there has been an absolutely Third World approach to family law and a hi-tech approach to anything to do with money and commercial work.
