Financial family work
If you are separating or divorcing, we can advise you on interim and final settlements. Whether you want advice on how to negotiate your own settlement or need full representation in court in contested proceedings, we can help, providing sensitive and intelligent advice about the way forward at a difficult time.
We can advise on pre-nuptial agreements and property disputes between unmarried couples. We have expertise in financial claims on behalf of children and on child support. Where trusts and tax issues arise we can draw on the expertise of colleagues in the private client team to provide you with seamless advice on your family situation.
If alternatives to the court procedure appeal to you, we offer collaborative law services to help you negotiate a settlement that’s right for you.
Children law
Our wide-ranging expertise of children law combined with an understanding of the emotional issues means that we can guide you through some of the most challenging family law problems. We can help you with residence and contact disputes, international relocation, returning children across international borders, and disputes over schooling, naming or other specific issues.
International family law
International families need specialist advice to negotiate complex questions of jurisdiction and international law. If you live and work abroad, have moved to the UK to work, if you married abroad, or if your partner has moved to live with you from another country, then you could benefit from expert advice about your situation.
We can advise you on the full range of international family law, including:
whether you should divorce in this country or abroad
whether a pre-nuptial agreement will be upheld
preventing child abduction
the implications of international relocation
enforcing court orders contact with children across international boundaries
You may need comparative advice in two jurisdictions and we can liaise with lawyers in jurisdictions abroad to give you the full picture.
Civil partnership
Civil partners need specialist advice and we can help you whether you need advice on pre-registration agreements, registration, dissolution, financial settlements and children matters. Post separation, we can advise on dissolution of the partnership, financial settlements and children disputes, including parental responsibility and shared care, as well as the effect of the new fertility treatment legislation.
Collaborative family law – a new approach
For many people court proceedings relating to their family are stressful, expensive and corrosive. The collaborative approach seeks to find a different way, by putting the whole family’s needs at the centre of the negotiation process in series of 'four way' meetings between the couple and their lawyers with a full commitment to openness about all issues. The parties commit to maintaining positive and respectful relationships with minimal reliance on correspondence and a move away from more traditional 'positional negotiations'.