Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song

Every day during the pandemic I walk along the Thames. Having a lockdown puppy helps - she loves the Thames walks, and her happiness is infectious.

There’s another way in which I get my Thames fix. Every Wednesday I travel to West Brompton for sessions of our family law clinic. On a Brompton bike. And my route takes me along the river. It’s a constant, never-ending, always-flowing backdrop. There and back.

And the work of a family law clinic is never-ending. As long as there are families, there will be a need for experts on how to look after family members.

The ethos of the Charity Dads House is ideally suited to look after the family. It has a solid record since 2008 of providing a caring, welcoming environment for its clients and staff.

Mums and dads are welcome here.

What is the attraction of the work at Dads House for a family lawyer?

If I could put one experience in the last 12 months in a bottle and keep it, that would be the reaction of a client who wept tears of relief and joy. A client who was carrying emotional baggage, and the scars of going through a family law case without any help until she found us as a last chance saloon.

If family lawyers do not show compassion in their work, they are nothing.

Actually that experience which I have described has been memorialised, because it was witnessed not only by our boss William McGranaghan, but also by our law student advisors and by a friend of Dads House who attended as an observer.

It was in The Wasteland that T S Eliot quoted Spencer’s line about the the river of this great capital city.

And for me the irony is that it’s descriptive not of a wasteland but of a paragon of hope.

The work of our family law clinic will never end.

Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song.

Simon Bruce - Supervising Solicitor, 23 May 2021