Drawing on the insights of its Family Law team, ZRVP has launched today THE CHILD FACTOR, a blog designed to provide practical guidance and analysis on all legal aspects of family disputes. An important part of the articles published will tackle child law, with a focus on the principle of “the best interest of the child” including, but not limited to, the context of divorce. The blog is edited by lawyer Ovidiu Șerban, coordinator of the Family Law practice of Zamfirescu Racoți Vasile & Partners (ZRVP).

Amid a rising number of family disputes registered during the last years, the initiative of the family law department of ZRVP comes in response to the need of clients to access useful and correct legal information on issues arising from broken family relationships, including divorce and partition, adoption and inheritance or domestic violence.

The core of the platform THE CHILD FACTOR will be, as the name suggests, child law. Family disputes often have a negative emotional impact on children caught up in the struggle of parents on the brink of separation or during divorce proceedings. The "child factor" is thus one of the main issues parents need to consider in a divorce, and it is important that they understand the drama/trauma the child is undergoing and resolve the conflict with minimal impact on the child.

The slogan “Separated, but partners in parenting” is a call to parents to always remember that no matter the conflict, they are and remain parents first.

Commenting on the launch, Ovidiu Șerban, family law practice coordinator and initiator of this project, said: “The idea to create a blog and share useful knowledge was born at a time of booming divorce and domestic violence cases. One out of 3.5 marriages ended in divorce during 2020 and over 22,000 divorced couples were registered in the same year, and the trend seems to continue. In cases of divorce with children, the toughest battle is to protect the rights of the child caught up in the parents' dispute and used by each parent as a weapon or bargaining chip against the other. The client's interest must converge with the best interest of the child and the outcome must be beneficial to both client and child – our work has been and will always be based on this principle. Each party in a divorce proceeding is represented by a lawyer, the only one who does not have a lawyer in the process is the child. We always advocate, as a first step in divorce proceedings with children, for an amicable settlement which implies an agreement between the parents on the best option for separation, with minimal impact on the child”.

ZRVP is one of the few law firms in Romania to offer legal assistance and representation to natural persons on all aspects of family law through a specialised department. The team of lawyers currently handles more than 100 mandates, mainly divorce and partition, adoption and inheritance.

ZRVP organised in 2018, in partnership with the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of the Child and Adoption, Estuar Foundation and the Save the Children organisation, the event "Exposing children to family disputes between parents", a necessary initiative given that the number of divorce cases involving children stood at over 17,000 that year, according to the National Institute of Statistics. Since then the numbers have risen, as have cases of domestic violence, violence against children, emotional and physical abuse.

About Zamfirescu Racoţi Vasile & Partners

Zamfirescu Racoţi Vasile & Partners (ZRVP) is recognized as one of the leading law firms in Romania, providing legal assistance services in the areas of litigation and arbitration, as well as business law, insolvency, criminal law and tax consultancy.

ZRVP has a team of 66 lawyers, including 14 partners: Călin-Andrei Zamfirescu, Ioana Racoţi and Stan Tîrnoveanu (founding partners), Cosmin Vasile (managing partner), Anca Danilescu (senior partner), Andrei Dumitrescu, Mihai Băjenaru, Elena Iacob, Alina Tugearu, Monica Strîmbei, Cătălin Micu and Cosmin Cojocaru (partners), prof. dr. Valerian Cioclei and Robert Oancea (of counsel).