A McKenzie Friend is a person who accompanies a litigant in person to a court hearing in England and Wales to help them, without being their lawyer. The name comes from the 1970 divorce case McKenzie v McKenzie, in which the Court of Appeal held that a party who conducts their own case is entitled to reasonable assistance from a friend sitting beside them.[1][2] Under the Practice Guidance issued by the Master of the Rolls and the President of the Family Division on 12 July 2010, a McKenzie Friend may “provide moral support for litigants; take notes; help with case papers; quietly give advice on any aspect of the conduct of the case”, but may not “address the court, make oral submissions or examine witnesses”, act as the litigant’s agent, or manage the case outside court.[3]
There is a strong presumption that a litigant may have a McKenzie Friend, including at family hearings held in private, and the court may refuse only where the interests of justice and fairness require it.[3][1] The role is not regulated: anyone may use the title, no qualification, insurance or registration is required, and complaints cannot be taken to the Legal Ombudsman.[4][5] A McKenzie Friend may lawfully charge a fee, and a market of paid or “professional” McKenzie Friends has grown since most private family law was removed from legal aid in April 2013; a judicial consultation in 2016 proposed to ban fee recovery and rename the role, but the Judicial Executive Board decided in February 2019 to leave the question of fee-charging to government.[6][2][7] In January to March 2026, 49 per cent of private law children cases in the Family Court were disposed of with neither party legally represented.[8]
Definition
The Practice Guidance opens with the principle that “litigants have the right to have reasonable assistance from a layperson, sometimes called a McKenzie Friend (MF)”.[3] The term has no statutory definition. It describes a function rather than a status: any person, whether a relative, a friend, a charity volunteer or a paid assistant, becomes a McKenzie Friend when the court permits them to sit with an unrepresented party and help in the permitted ways.[3][6] GOV.UK describes the role in plain terms: a McKenzie Friend can take notes and give advice but cannot “speak for you”, “interfere with proceedings” or “sign documents on your behalf”, and “the judge will decide whether you can have a McKenzie friend with you in court”.[9]
A McKenzie Friend is therefore distinct from a legal representative. A solicitor, barrister or authorised CILEX lawyer who is instructed goes on the court record as acting for the party and may address the court and conduct the litigation; a McKenzie Friend does neither, and the party they assist remains a litigant in person.[3][10] The Legal Services Consumer Panel, in the first study of the paid market, distinguished four types: family members or friends helping on a single occasion; volunteers attached to charities or institutions; fee-charging McKenzie Friends offering the conventional limited service; and fee-charging McKenzie Friends offering wider services including advice and, where permitted, advocacy.[6] The differences between McKenzie Friends and the regulated professions are set out on family law professionals.
Origin: McKenzie v McKenzie
McKenzie v McKenzie [1970] 3 All ER 1034, also reported at [1970] 3 WLR 472 and [1971] P 33, was a defended divorce in which the husband, having lost his legal aid, was assisted by Ian Hanger, an Australian barrister who was not entitled to practise in England. The trial judge refused to let Mr Hanger sit with the husband and help him. The Court of Appeal held that the judge had been wrong to deny that assistance and ordered a retrial.[2][1] The 2016 judicial consultation paper quotes the Court of Appeal’s description of the assistant’s role: “Mr. Hanger was not there to take part in the proceedings in any sort of way. He was merely there to prompt and to make suggestions to the husband”, including “suggestions as to the cross-examination of the wife and her witnesses”.[2]
The decision did not create a new right. It applied a much older principle, stated in Collier v Hicks (1831) 2 B & Ad 663, that “any person, whether he be a professional man or not, may attend as a friend of either party, may take notes, may quietly make suggestions, and give advice”.[1][2] The Court of Appeal in Re O (Children) [2005] EWCA Civ 759 records that “the term McKenzie friend was first used in 1970 following the appeal to this court” in that case.[1]
Legal basis
Two sources govern the role. The first is the common law right of a litigant in person to reasonable assistance, recognised in Collier v Hicks and McKenzie v McKenzie and restated in later cases including Re O and Re N (A Child) (McKenzie Friend: Rights of Audience) [2008] EWHC 2042 (Fam).[1][11] The second is the Legal Services Act 2007, which reserves certain activities to authorised persons and makes it a criminal offence for anyone else to carry them on.[10][12]
The Legal Services Act 2007
Section 12(1) of the 2007 Act lists six reserved legal activities: “(a) the exercise of a right of audience; (b) the conduct of litigation; (c) reserved instrument activities; (d) probate activities; (e) notarial activities; (f) the administration of oaths”.[10] Schedule 2 defines the first two. A right of audience is “the right to appear before and address a court, including the right to call and examine witnesses”. The conduct of litigation means “the issuing of proceedings before any court in England and Wales”, “the commencement, prosecution and defence of such proceedings, and the performance of any ancillary functions in relation to such proceedings”.[13] Section 14(1) provides: “It is an offence for a person to carry on an activity (“the relevant activity”) which is a reserved legal activity unless that person is entitled to carry on the relevant activity.” The offence is punishable on indictment by up to two years’ imprisonment, and a person who purports to exercise a right of audience or to conduct litigation without entitlement is also guilty of contempt of court.[12]
A litigant in person is entitled to exercise a right of audience and to conduct litigation in their own case because Schedule 3 exempts a party to proceedings. A McKenzie Friend has no such exemption. The Practice Guidance therefore warns that “it is a criminal offence to exercise rights of audience or to conduct litigation unless properly qualified”, citing sections 12 to 19 and Schedule 3 of the Act, and the courts have held that a McKenzie Friend “has no right to act as an advocate or conduct litigation”.[3][14] The court retains a discretion to grant a right of audience or a right to conduct litigation to a particular person in a particular case, and it is on that discretion that any advocacy by a McKenzie Friend depends.[3][11]
The Practice Guidance of 12 July 2010
The current guidance was issued jointly by Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Master of the Rolls, and Sir Nicholas Wall, President of the Family Division, on 12 July 2010. It applies “to civil and family proceedings in the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), the High Court of Justice, the County Courts and the Family Proceedings Court in the Magistrates’ Courts”, and since 2014 has been applied in the single Family Court.[3] It consolidated the principles in Re O, Re N and the cases on rights of audience.[3][1][11] It is guidance, not a rule of court; the 2016 consultation proposed replacing it with rules, but in 2019 the Judicial Executive Board directed instead that it “should now be updated and re-issued”.[2][7] As of September 2026 the 2010 text remains the guidance published on the judiciary’s website.[3]
What a McKenzie Friend may and may not do
Paragraph 3 of the Practice Guidance states what a McKenzie Friend may do: “provide moral support for litigants; take notes; help with case papers; quietly give advice on any aspect of the conduct of the case”. Paragraph 4 states what they may not do: “act as the litigants’ agent in relation to the proceedings; manage litigants’ cases outside court, for example by signing court documents; or address the court, make oral submissions or examine witnesses”.[3] The litigant may share any information about the case with the McKenzie Friend, including evidence that has been filed, for the purpose of obtaining advice; in family cases this is an exception to the usual rule that documents in private children proceedings may not be disclosed to third parties.[3]
| Activity | Permitted? | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Sit beside the litigant in court, including at a private family hearing | Yes, with the court’s permission, which is presumed | Practice Guidance paras 3, 9[3] |
| Take notes and help organise papers | Yes | Practice Guidance para 3[3] |
| Quietly suggest questions or points during the hearing | Yes | Practice Guidance para 3; Collier v Hicks[3][1] |
| Read the litigant’s filed evidence and give advice | Yes | Practice Guidance paras 15 to 17[3] |
| Help draft documents outside court | Yes, provided the litigant signs and files them as their own | Practice Guidance para 4[3] |
| Sign court documents or correspond with the court or the other side as agent | No | Practice Guidance para 4; LSA 2007 Sch 2 para 4[3][13] |
| Address the court, make submissions or examine witnesses | Only if the court grants a right of audience, which is exceptional | Practice Guidance paras 18 to 25; LSA 2007 s.14[3][12] |
| Issue proceedings or conduct the litigation | Only if the court grants a right to conduct litigation, which is rarer still | Practice Guidance paras 18 to 25[3] |
| Charge a fee for reasonable assistance | Yes | Practice Guidance para 27[3] |
The line between help and advocacy is not always obvious. A McKenzie Friend who helps prepare a position statement or a court bundle for the litigant to file is within the permitted role; one who writes to the court or the other party in their own name, or describes themselves as acting for the litigant, has crossed into the conduct of litigation.[3][13] The Guidance addresses this directly by listing among the grounds for refusal that the McKenzie Friend “is directly or indirectly conducting the litigation”.[3]
Permission, objection and refusal
A litigant who wishes to be assisted should tell the judge as soon as possible, and the proposed McKenzie Friend should provide “a short curriculum vitae or other statement” setting out relevant experience, confirming that they have no interest in the case and that they understand the role and the duty of confidentiality.[3] The court may refuse assistance where “the interests of justice and fairness do not require” it, but the burden is on the court or the objecting party to justify refusal, and the litigant must be given “a reasonable opportunity to argue the point”; the proposed McKenzie Friend is ordinarily allowed to help during that argument.[3]
Paragraph 9 of the Guidance deals with family hearings held in private. It states that the presumption in favour of permitting a McKenzie Friend to attend such hearings “is a strong one”, following the Court of Appeal’s decision in Re O, which rejected the argument that the private nature of children proceedings, or the litigant’s competence, was a sufficient reason to refuse.[3][1] In Re O the court also noted that “the McKenzie friend has no enforceable right to provide his services; the court is solely concerned with the interests of the litigant in person”.[1]
Grounds for refusal
Paragraph 13 gives examples of circumstances in which assistance may be refused: where it is sought for “an improper purpose”; where it is “unreasonable in nature or degree”; where the McKenzie Friend is subject to “a civil restraint order”; where the McKenzie Friend is “using the litigant as a puppet”; and where the McKenzie Friend “is directly or indirectly conducting the litigation”.[3] The underlying test in paragraph 10 is whether the McKenzie Friend “may give, has given, or is giving, assistance which impedes the efficient administration of justice”.[3]
The court may also bar a particular person from acting as a McKenzie Friend altogether. In Re Baggaley [2015] EWHC 1496 (Fam) Sir James Munby, then President of the Family Division, made an indefinite order prohibiting a fee-charging McKenzie Friend from “acting or holding himself out to act as a McKenzie friend in these or any other proceedings in any court”, after findings that he had argued with magistrates, used abusive language to a solicitor, confronted opposing counsel and shown “either a total lack of understanding of the role of a McKenzie Friend or … a wilful disregard to the proper limits” of it.[14] The order was made under the court’s inherent jurisdiction to control its own proceedings and preserved his right to litigate on his own behalf.[14]
Rights of audience and conduct of litigation
A McKenzie Friend may ask the court to grant them a right of audience, that is permission to speak for the litigant, or a right to conduct the litigation. Paragraphs 18 to 25 of the Practice Guidance state that courts should be “slow to grant” such rights, that they are granted case by case and not generally, and that grants to “professional advocates or professional MFs” who hold themselves out as providing advocacy services should be made “only … in exceptional circumstances”.[3] The reasons are that Parliament has reserved these activities to regulated lawyers and that a person exercising them without entitlement commits an offence under section 14 of the Legal Services Act 2007.[12]
The “exceptional circumstances” test comes from D v S (Rights of Audience) [1997] 1 FLR 724, in which Lord Woolf MR was concerned with a person who repeatedly sought to act as an advocate for others. In Re N, Munby J drew on Clarkson v Gilbert [2000] 2 FLR 839 to explain that the strict test applies to the “professional” McKenzie Friend “holding himself out as providing advocacy services”, while for a family member or friend the court asks whether there is good reason to grant the right, because “the overriding objective is that the courts should do justice”.[11] Factors the Guidance lists include the litigant’s ability to present the case, the complexity of the issues, the McKenzie Friend’s conduct and any interest they have, and whether the litigant is vulnerable.[3]
In the family jurisdiction the question arises most often at fact-finding and final hearings. Since 21 July 2022 a party who is prohibited from cross-examining an alleged victim of abuse in person cannot get round the prohibition by having a McKenzie Friend do so; the court instead appoints a qualified legal representative. That regime is described on litigant in person and fact-finding hearing.
Paid McKenzie Friends
Paragraph 27 of the Practice Guidance confirms that “litigants can enter into lawful agreements to pay fees to MFs” for reasonable assistance.[3] Before 2013 paid assistance was unusual. The removal of most private family law from legal aid by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 on 1 April 2013 produced both a sharp rise in litigants in person and a market of people offering assistance for a fee, commonly described as “professional McKenzie Friends”.[2][6] Legal aid for private family law is now available only where the applicant has evidence of domestic abuse or child protection concerns and passes the means test; see legal aid.
The Legal Services Consumer Panel study, 2014
The first research into the paid market was published by the Legal Services Consumer Panel, the statutory consumer body attached to the Legal Services Board, on 17 April 2014.[6][15] It found that most fee-charging McKenzie Friends were sole traders, roughly half working full time and assisting fifty or more clients a year; that hourly rates ranged from £15 to £89 with a “typical range” of “£35-60”, and day rates from £100 to £400 with a typical range of £150 to £200; that few had legal qualifications, many having come to the work through their own family court experience; and that the “majority are not insured”.[6] The Panel concluded that “the potential benefits to litigants of fee-charging McKenzie Friends outweigh the potential risks”, that “for many litigants in person, the real choice is actually between using a McKenzie Friend or being entirely unsupported”, and that formal regulation “would be a disproportionate response to the risks given the lack of evidence of consumer detriment and the discretion and tools available to judges”. It recommended instead that fee-charging McKenzie Friends be “recognised as a legitimate feature of the evolving legal services market”, form a trade association with a code of practice, and that “automatic rights of audience should not be granted”.[6][15]
The Bar Council-funded study, 2017
A qualitative study by Leanne Smith, Emma Hitchings and Mark Sefton, funded by the Bar Council and published in June 2017, interviewed twenty fee-charging McKenzie Friends and twenty of their clients and observed seven private family law cases in five courts between August and November 2016.[16] The researchers estimated that around 100 people were working as fee-charging McKenzie Friends in England and Wales, against the Panel’s earlier estimate of 40 to 50. Of the 24 interviewed, eleven had relevant legal qualifications or experience and eleven had personal experience of the family courts. The study classified them as “the business opportunist, redirected specialist, good Samaritan, family justice crusader, and the ‘rogue'”, found “limited evidence of rogue McKenzie Friends” in its sample, but recorded “great variation in the business practices” and gaps in administrative procedures and business standards.[16]
The 2016 consultation and its 2019 outcome
In February 2016 the Lord Chief Justice and the Judicial Executive Board published a consultation, Reforming the courts’ approach to McKenzie Friends, which closed on 9 June 2016.[17][2] It proposed: replacing the 2010 Practice Guidance with rules of court; renaming McKenzie Friends “court supporters”; a standard notice giving the court information about the proposed supporter, together with a code of conduct; a plain language guide for litigants and their helpers; and, in a draft rule 3.22, a prohibition on “recovery of expenses and fees incurred by McKenzie Friends”, following the Scottish model under which a lay supporter may receive “neither directly nor indirectly” any remuneration.[2] The Board’s response, published in February 2019, made none of those changes.[7]
More than 250 responses were received from judges, solicitors, barristers, McKenzie Friends, individuals, charities and academics. The summary annexed to the response records that they were “narrowly in favour of replacing the term ‘McKenzie Friend'” but “broadly against” the term “court supporter”; “in terms of numbers, overwhelmingly opposed to a prohibition on fee-recovery”; “broadly supportive of the introduction of a Code of Conduct”; and “broadly balanced” on a standard notice.[7] The Judicial Executive Board concluded that the growth of fee-charging McKenzie Friends was a consequence of the legal aid changes and a matter of policy for government rather than for the judiciary: “It is for the government to consider appropriate steps to be taken to enable LiPs to secure effective access to legal assistance”. It referred the response to the Lord Chancellor, supported the production of a plain language guide by non-judicial bodies, and directed that the 2010 Guidance “should now be updated and re-issued”.[7] No reissued guidance had been published by September 2026.[3]
The Competition and Markets Authority returned to the wider question in its December 2020 review of the legal services market, recommending that the Ministry of Justice establish “a mandatory public register of unregulated providers, requiring them to provide appropriate redress”, and that the Legal Services Board review which activities are reserved.[18] Neither recommendation had been implemented for McKenzie Friends by September 2026.
How to check a McKenzie Friend
There is no register, regulator, required qualification, compulsory insurance or ombudsman for McKenzie Friends. Legal Choices, the public information site published by the legal regulators of England and Wales, states: “The activities of McKenzie Friends are not controlled. Anyone can call themselves a McKenzie Friend.”[4] It advises a person considering one to “ask them what protections will be available to you. Check if they are insured, follow a code of conduct or belong to a membership body”, and to ask them to set out in writing what work they will do and what it will cost.[4] The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints only about “regulated legal service providers” and cannot consider a complaint about a McKenzie Friend.[5]
The Society of Professional McKenzie Friends, a company incorporated in 2014, is a voluntary membership body whose members must follow a code of conduct and hold professional indemnity insurance; it operates a directory and a complaints process for its own members, and states on its site that “there is no equivalent regulator controlling the activities of McKenzie Friends. Anyone can call themselves a McKenzie Friend”.[19][4] Membership is evidence of insurance and of acceptance of a code, not of legal qualification or of any external regulation. A McKenzie Friend who is also a practising solicitor, barrister or CILEX lawyer remains subject to their own regulator’s conduct rules when acting in that capacity, and a struck-off lawyer acting as a McKenzie Friend is not.[6]
Practical checks that follow from the Guidance and the research are: asking for the curriculum vitae the court will expect; asking whether the person has ever been refused permission, made subject to a civil restraint order or barred; asking about insurance; and obtaining a written agreement on the work and the fee which makes clear that the litigant will sign and file every document.[3][6][4] A general description of the role, its limits and the questions to ask, written for litigants, is published by McKenzie Friend Services, an information site operated by Family Legal Ltd, the publisher of this wiki, which states that “there is no approved regulator for McKenzie Friends” and that its own document services are unregulated.[20]
Fees and costs recoverability
Paragraphs 27 to 30 of the Practice Guidance deal with payment. A litigant may lawfully agree to pay a McKenzie Friend for reasonable assistance, but the fee is not a legal cost of the litigation and cannot ordinarily be recovered from the opposing party under a costs order.[3] Paragraph 28 goes further: where a McKenzie Friend has carried out work amounting to the conduct of litigation without the court’s permission, fees for that work cannot be “lawfully recovered from either the litigant … or the opposing party”, because the work itself was unlawful.[3][12] Where the court has granted a right of audience, paragraph 30 provides that the fee for exercising it may be recoverable “from the opposing party as a recoverable disbursement”.[3]
The Consumer Panel identified non-recoverability as a structural disadvantage of using a McKenzie Friend rather than a lawyer, noting that a litigant “may decide this is a financial risk they cannot afford to take”.[6] The point matters less in family proceedings than in civil litigation, because the usual order in children and financial remedy cases is no order as to costs.
Fee levels are set by the market. The Panel’s 2014 figures were hourly rates typically between £35 and £60 and day rates typically between £150 and £200.[6] Providers publishing fixed fees in 2026 include McKenzie Friend Services, whose published prices for document work on 6 August 2026 ranged from £150 for preparation for a Cafcass interview to £499 for a case review, with court forms and position statements between £225 and £250; these are for preparation rather than attendance at a hearing.[20] For comparison, the guideline hourly rates for solicitors and the fees of other professionals are set out on family law professionals, and the fixed-fee and limited-scope model on unbundled legal services.
Statistics
No official series counts McKenzie Friends, because they are not on the court record. The relevant published figures are those for legal representation, which show the size of the group from which McKenzie Friends’ clients are drawn, and the research estimates of the paid market.
| Measure | Figure | Source and period |
|---|---|---|
| Private law children disposals with neither party represented | 49 per cent, up 3 percentage points on a year earlier | Family Court Statistics Quarterly, January to March 2026[8] |
| Private law children disposals with both parties represented | 13 per cent, down 1 percentage point | As above[8] |
| Private law cases started | 15,534, up 16 per cent | As above[8] |
| Average time to disposal, private law | 35 weeks, down 5 weeks | As above[8] |
| Increase in family cases with a litigant in person after April 2013 | 30 per cent | National Audit Office figure cited in the 2016 consultation paper[2] |
| Estimated number of fee-charging McKenzie Friends | 40 to 50 (2014); around 100 (2017) | Legal Services Consumer Panel; Smith, Hitchings and Sefton[6][16] |
| Typical hourly fee | £35 to £60 (range £15 to £89) | Legal Services Consumer Panel, April 2014[6] |
| Typical day rate | £150 to £200 (range £100 to £400) | As above[6] |
| Responses to the 2016 judicial consultation | More than 250 | Judicial Executive Board, February 2019[7] |
History
| Date | Development |
|---|---|
| 1831 | Collier v Hicks: the court states that any person may attend as a friend of a party, take notes, quietly make suggestions and give advice[1] |
| 1970 | McKenzie v McKenzie: the Court of Appeal orders a retrial where the trial judge had refused to let an unqualified assistant sit with the husband, giving the role its name[2][1] |
| 1997 | D v S (Rights of Audience): Lord Woolf MR holds that a right of audience should be granted to a lay person only in exceptional circumstances[11] |
| 22 June 2005 | Re O (Children): the Court of Appeal confirms a strong presumption in favour of a McKenzie Friend at private family hearings[1] |
| 2007 | The Legal Services Act 2007 defines the reserved legal activities and the offence of carrying them on without entitlement[10][12] |
| 20 August 2008 | Re N: Munby J distinguishes professional McKenzie Friends, to whom the exceptional circumstances test applies, from family members and friends[11] |
| 12 July 2010 | The Master of the Rolls and the President of the Family Division issue the current Practice Guidance[3] |
| 1 April 2013 | LASPO removes most private family law from legal aid; litigants in person and paid McKenzie Friends increase[2] |
| 17 April 2014 | The Legal Services Consumer Panel publishes the first study of fee-charging McKenzie Friends and advises against regulation[6] |
| 22 May 2015 | Re Baggaley: the President of the Family Division bars a fee-charging McKenzie Friend indefinitely[14] |
| February 2016 | The Lord Chief Justice and Judicial Executive Board consult on rules of court, renaming and a ban on fee recovery[2] |
| June 2017 | Bar Council-funded study estimates around 100 fee-charging McKenzie Friends[16] |
| February 2019 | The Judicial Executive Board publishes its response: no rules, no renaming, no fee ban; fee-charging referred to government[7] |
| 17 December 2020 | The Competition and Markets Authority recommends a mandatory register of unregulated providers with a redress requirement[18] |
| 25 June 2026 | Family Court Statistics Quarterly reports 49 per cent of private law disposals with neither party represented[8] |
Criticism and debate
The debate about McKenzie Friends is almost entirely a debate about paid McKenzie Friends. Nobody disputes the value of a relative or a volunteer sitting beside an unrepresented parent. The arguments about the paid market run in two directions. Those in favour, including the Legal Services Consumer Panel, point to the absence of evidence of consumer detriment on any scale, to judges’ reports that competent McKenzie Friends “encourage litigants to separate emotion from the facts”, and to the reality that the alternative for most clients is no help at all.[6] Those against, including many respondents from the legal professions to the 2016 consultation, point to the lack of qualification, insurance and redress; to the risk that people with “personal crusades” or a grievance against the family courts exploit vulnerable clients; to fee escalation; and to examples such as Re Baggaley.[6][14][7]
The 2016 consultation was the judiciary’s attempt to resolve the question by removing the commercial incentive. Its withdrawal in 2019 left the position as it was in 2010: a strong presumption in favour of assistance, a discretion to refuse in the individual case, a criminal prohibition on advocacy and conduct of litigation without permission, and no regulation of the person.[7][3] The demand for paid McKenzie Friends is a product of the 2013 legal aid changes, which the courts cannot reverse; the Competition and Markets Authority’s work on unregulated providers and the growth of unbundled services from regulated lawyers are the main developments since.[18]
Finding a McKenzie Friend or other help
Free help for people without a lawyer is described in full on litigant in person.
See also
- Family law professionals – solicitors, barristers, CILEX lawyers, paralegals, mediators, arbitrators and McKenzie Friends compared
- Unbundled legal services – paying a lawyer for part of a case
- Legal aid – scope and the means test
- Domestic abuse and family law
- Case law – index of leading cases
- Litigant in person – the party a McKenzie Friend assists
- Position statement
- Court bundle
- Fact-finding hearing – the cross-examination prohibition
References
- Re O (Children) (Hearing in Private: Assistance) [2005] EWCA Civ 759. Find Case Law, The National Archives. 22 June 2005. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Reforming the courts’ approach to McKenzie Friends: a consultation. Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and the Judicial Executive Board. February 2016. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Practice Guidance: McKenzie Friends (Civil and Family Courts). Master of the Rolls and President of the Family Division. 12 July 2010. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- McKenzie Friends: how they can help in court if you cannot afford a solicitor. Legal Choices (published by the legal regulators of England and Wales). Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Frequently asked questions. Legal Ombudsman. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Fee-charging McKenzie Friends. Legal Services Consumer Panel. 17 April 2014. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Reforming the courts’ approach to McKenzie Friends: consultation response. Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and the Judicial Executive Board. February 2019. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Family Court Statistics Quarterly, January to March 2026. Ministry of Justice. 25 June 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Represent yourself in court. GOV.UK. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Legal Services Act 2007, section 12: Meaning of “reserved legal activity” and “legal activity”. legislation.gov.uk. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Re N (A Child) (McKenzie Friend: Rights of Audience) [2008] EWHC 2042 (Fam). Find Case Law, The National Archives. 20 August 2008. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Legal Services Act 2007, section 14: Offence to carry on a reserved legal activity if not entitled. legislation.gov.uk. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Legal Services Act 2007, Schedule 2: The reserved legal activities. legislation.gov.uk. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Re Baggaley [2015] EWHC 1496 (Fam). Find Case Law, The National Archives. 22 May 2015. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Litigants in person. Legal Services Consumer Panel. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- A study of fee-charging McKenzie Friends and their work in private family law cases. Leanne Smith, Emma Hitchings and Mark Sefton, Cardiff University and University of Bristol, funded by the Bar Council. June 2017. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Consultation: Reforming the courts’ approach to McKenzie Friends. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- CMA publishes review of progress in legal services sector. Competition and Markets Authority. 17 December 2020. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Society of Professional McKenzie Friends. Society of Professional McKenzie Friends Ltd. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- What is a McKenzie Friend?. McKenzie Friend Services (Family Legal Ltd). last checked 6 August 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
External links
- Practice Guidance: McKenzie Friends (Civil and Family Courts) – the 2010 guidance in full
- Consultation: Reforming the courts’ approach to McKenzie Friends – 2016 paper and 2019 response
- Legal Services Act 2007 – reserved legal activities
- Legal Choices: McKenzie Friends
- Legal Services Consumer Panel: fee-charging McKenzie Friends – April 2014 report
- GOV.UK: represent yourself in court
- Society of Professional McKenzie Friends
This article is part of Family Law Wiki, published by Family Legal Ltd. It is general information about the law of England and Wales, not legal advice. Last reviewed 6 September 2026. About this site and editorial policy · Report an error.