Claire Heppenstall

Practice Areas

Claire practises exclusively in private family and family related work. Her practice is largely split between Private Children and Financial Remedies work.

Dealing with both children and money work allows her to assist the private client across most areas of dispute that arise during difficult family breakdowns in a highly effective and pragmatic but also robust way. She is frequently instructed to appear against Leading Counsel.

In Private Children Law, Claire has huge amount of expertise in cases involving relocation, external and internal. She also has extensive experience of highly acrimonious and long-running intractable child arrangement disputes, often instructed in cases involving allegations of alienating behaviours/alignment and where expert psychiatric assessment is required.

In Financial Remedies, she is often instructed in difficult cases involving issues of non-disclosure or where careful analysis of family businesses/ trust interests is required. She has considerable experience of dealing with Schedule 1 applications.

Claire is a keen advocate of NCDR and sees the real benefit to clients of utilising these options. She is dual qualified and well regarded as an Arbitrator to deal with disputes under the IFLA Finance and Children schemes, one of few arbitrators so qualified. She's also a Mediator, registered with FMA and has real capability in assisting clients to reach their own solutions.

Career

LLB (Hons) and LLM University College, University of London

Called to the Bar 1990

Dual Qualified IFLA Arbitrator for Finance and Children 2016

Recorder on the South Eastern Circuit (2022) sitting in Family and Financial Remedies

Professional Memberships

FLBA, ALC