Family Law Partners

Firm Details:

Family Law Partners are a specialist firm dealing exclusively with family law in the South East, with offices in Brighton, London, Horsham, Tunbridge Wells, Ascot, Chelmsford, Eastbourne, Fleet, Petersfield, Winchester and Lewes. Its specialist team always look to work collaboratively with clients and fellow professionals to achieve the best outcome for clients and their families. The firm's willingness to provide and signpost to non-court dispute resolution options (including arbitration) is in the “DNA” of all the team, as evidenced by the commitment the firm makes to train all legal advisors in DR disciplines.

Firm Overview:

With one of the largest teams of DR trained specialists in the country (presently offering 13 mediators, 11 collaborative lawyers and an arbitrator) Family Law Partners are committed to helping clients find the best possible solutions, which means finding a resolution that is not just workable now but also in the future. It is one of the only firms to have a family consultant embedded full-time within the team.

The team comprises of 27 qualified lawyers: Sarah Jelly, consultant (qualified 1978); Robert Williams, director (qualified 1994), Alan Larkin, director (qualified 1997), Jayne Llewelyn, consultant (qualified 1989); Hazel Manktelow, consultant (qualified 2003); Lisa Burton-Durham, director (qualified 2004); Kate Elliott, director (qualified 2006); Gemma Hope, director (qualified 2006); Louise Buttery, consultant (qualified 2011); Chris Maulkin, director (qualified 2011); Polly Dallyn, senior associate (qualified 2017), Charlotte Plowman, senior associate (qualified 2016); Emily Pain, consultant (qualified 2011); Rachel Nicholl, director (qualified 2013); Mimi Hadley, solicitor (qualified 2020); Alice Scambler, director (qualified 2008), Raj Patel, solicitor (qualified 2019), Amanda Phillips-Wylds, director (qualified 2009); Eleanor Pollard, solicitor (qualified 2020), Sarah-Jane Riddell, senior associate (qualified 1993), Craig Yeung-Williams, associate solicitor (qualified 2010), Zoë Summers, consultant (qualified 2009), Hannah Gumbrill-Ward, associate solicitor (qualified 2019), Victoria Burrows, senior associate (qualified 2004), Katy-Louise Allen (qualified 2010).

Main Areas of Practice:

In all Family Law Partners' work, the firm looks to ensure the client has the right team to support their needs. This may include specialist counsel, pension experts, financial experts, forensic accountants, counsellors and family consultants.

Divorce, judicial separation and dissolution: the firm's team of divorce solicitors are highly experienced and will work with the firm's clients to make an informed decision as to which option is appropriate and if so when it would be in their interests to start the process.

Mediation: Family Law Partners mediation team are all experienced family law specialist comprising Kate Elliott, Gemma Hope, Amanda Phillips-Wylds, Alice Scrambler, Hannah Viet, Sarah-Jane Riddell, Polly Dallyn, Charlotte Plowman, Katy-Louise Allen, Sarah Jelly, Jayne Llewelyn, Hazel Manktelow, Louise Buttery and Emily Pain.

Financial issues: Family Law Partners family solicitors are highly experienced in complex financial issues and approach their advice holistically and strategically to ensure cases are dealt with in the most appropriate, sensitive and cost-effective way. Family Law Partners aim to adopt a non-adversarial approach to resolving matters and encourage the use of mediation, round table meetings and the collaborative law model. Even when involved in litigation Family Law Partners remain issue focused to ensure the best outcome is achieved in the most cost-effective way.

Cohabitation: the firm look at all the issues that may impact their client and advise how to address these in the most appropriate, sensitive and cost-effective way. The firm aims to adopt a non-adversarial approach to resolving matters and encourage the use of family mediation, round table meetings and the collaborative law model. When cases require it the firm will litigate but the firm do so in a solution-focused way.

Pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements: Family Law Partners prefer to facilitate pre-relationship agreements using round-table meetings or the collaborative model if possible so there can be honest and open discussions, and issues can be explored and reality-checked.

Children: Family Law Partners takes a solution-focused approach to arrangements for children and involve third party support to improve communication and parenting differences if needed. The firm works with clients to find lasting outcomes.

Agreeable: Launched by the firm in 2022, Agreeable is an experience where a specialist mediator who is also a qualified family lawyer works together with the firm's family consultant to offer a new model where one lawyer acts for both parties. The service is ground-breaking and was borne out of the team's many years of experience in mediation and listening to what clients want.

Surrogacy: Family Law Partners specialist surrogacy team is experienced in advising on the different aspects of surrogacy. Family Law Partners help same-sex and heterosexual couples both married and unmarried and from diverse backgrounds and cultures. The firm can assist with surrogacy planning, parental order applications, surrogacy disputes, international surrogacy issues, immigration and British nationality for children born abroad.

Offices:

• London
• Brighton (Sussex)
• Horsham (Sussex)
• Ascot (Berkshire)
• Tunbridge Wells (Kent)
• Fleet (Hampshire)
• Petersfield (Hampshire)
• Winchester (Hampshire)
• Chelmsford (Essex)
• Lewes (Sussex)
• Eastbourne (Sussex)