What can I do for you?
I’m a specialist in family law, dealing predominantly with the financial consequences of separation. I advise individuals following the breakdown of their marriage or relationship. We increasingly advise people contemplating marriage so they can protect themselves and their family should their future together not be as rosy as they had hoped. The majority of cases will settle through negotiations – which has to be the best way – though litigation is sometimes absolutely necessary. We have successfully defended one of my clients in the Court of Appeal.
Supporting my clients’ objectives
Visiting a family lawyer is never number one on my clients’ to do list. If they are talking to me things have gone wrong already in their lives and all I can do is try my best to help them through one of the toughest times they are likely to experience. We must offer a degree of empathy and solid legal knowledge to ensure they feel confident that they will achieve the result that suits them best, keeping the wider family impact and commercial reality of the situation in mind.
What do others say?
We are very proud of our family team at Mills & Reeve and were delighted when this was recognised at the Legal Business Awards, where we won Private Client Team of the Year 2009. We pride ourselves on giving excellent clear advice tailored to the individual needs of our clients. In addition, Chambers UK describes us as having “established itself as a national player in family work”.
It never ceases to amaze me that with everything else going on in their lives clients still find the time to actually thank us for doing our job – seeking to replicate the experiences set out below for other clients gives me immense job fulfilment:
“…throughout the last two years your calm and considered approach has proven to be enormously reassuring particularly during the very emotional and stressful periods of my divorce. I have really appreciated your honest and measured advice which has helped me to manage my expectations in such a way that as I approach the final stages of my divorce I feel content with the outcome and ready to move forward with the next phase of my life. Most of all I have appreciated your sense of humour, your warmth and your tolerance of my sarcasm…”
“Thank you for the hard work you have done on my behalf. I am so very grateful – you made me feel as if you really really cared, which I know you did…”
“You put a huge amount of effort into the work required which necessitated some detailed forensic analysis. You handled the settlement with great care and subtlety and managed to avoid the trauma of being cross examined whilst achieving an excellent result…”
What else should you know?
I am a member of Resolution – an organisation committed to dealing with family law issues in a non-confrontational way wherever possible and have been a member of the West Midlands regional committee for a number of years. I am a trained collaborative lawyer.
Reported case: Dixon v Marchant (2008).
This team is also behind the successful and popular divorce.co.uk, one of the country’s leading free resources for people seeking information on divorce and family breakdown.