DR: Future of Family Practice: Models, Participation & Flexibility in Family Law

Chris Pocock specialises in divorce and matrimonial finance in disputes between high net worth parties. He has a wealth of experience dealing with complexities involving corporate and other businesses and/or complex remuneration packages, as well as with cases involving offshore and onshore trust and other asset-holding structures. Many, if not most, of his cases involve international and cross-border aspects, either substantively or in relation to enforcement.

Chris is ‘a skilled advocate (2020 Legal 500); ‘Very commercial, sensible and pragmatic in his advice”. “He’s excellent in cases where the detail is important.” (Chambers & Partners 2020)’

Claire is a partner in the divorce and family team.

She brings commitment, energy, strong technical expertise and sound judgement to all her work, spanning the full range of family law issues. Claire goes the extra mile for her clients with whom she has solid relationships.

Whether working with domestic or international clients, she deals with complex financial claims, children issues, pre and postnuptial agreements and cohabitant disputes and has extensive experience advising on cases involving trusts.

Her clients are in commerce, finance and tech, professionals, families with inherited wealth and those in the public eye. Whilst being highly experienced in difficult litigation she also has a busy dispute-resolution practice as a collaborative lawyer and mediator.

She has acted for (and for the spouses of) trustees, doctors, lawyers, hedge fund managers, members of aristocracy and people in the public eye. With clients involved in anything from sports and retail to pharmaceuticals and technology, Claire is well versed in dealing with clients holding senior positions in many different sectors.

Sarah is a Partner in the PwC UK Valuations practice (a team of 170 dedicated valuers) and specialises in providing valuation advice to Private Clients in relation to shareholdings in private and family owned businesses, often in the context of disputes. Sarah has been providing valuation advice to clients for over 17 years.

Sarah’s valuations experience is broad and covers a range of industry sectors. A significant amount of her time is spent working with legal teams and clients where independent views or evidence on valuation and liquidity is needed, often involving businesses in the industrial products and services, consumer and retail and real estate sectors.

During the course of her career Sarah has worked extensively on complex matrimonial disputes, including both single joint expert and sole expert cases, seeking to provide commercial, sensible and robust views on value by drawing upon current and relevant market insight. Sarah works collaboratively with legal teams and clients, and believes in a transparent approach, applying objectivity and independence in all cases.

Jackie has more than 30 years’ experience as a family law barrister. Her practice has focussed upon complex financial disputes following relationship breakdown and private law children disputes.

She sits in the family court (including the financial remedies court) as a deputy district judge where she has gained a wealth of experience in encouraging parties to settle their dispute at an early stage in the court process.

She was asked to be one of a group of specialist family judges designated to hear First Hearing Dispute Resolution appointments in private law children cases. Jackie has understanding and sympathy for the complex emotional issues that often underpin family disputes.

Jackie qualified as a mediator with both the London School of Mediation and at Resolution. She has a diploma in psychology at the Open University  and a postgraduate diploma in psychodynamic psychotherapy at The Portman and Tavistock NHS Trust.

She is continuing her training at the Institute of Psychoanalysis. She has an Honorary Placement as a psychotherapist in the NHS and sees patients regularly.

Michael is a partner in the divorce and family team.

Michael advises on all aspects of family law (including prenuptial agreements) with particular emphasis on the resolution of financial issues for wealthy individuals, whether married or unmarried and often with international interests. Michael has acted in numerous divorce cases involving trusts and businesses. Michael also has extensive experience of children law matters, including international relocation.

Michael’s breadth of work involves close liaison with many other specialist practice areas at Withers including the contentious trusts and estates team and the wealth planning teams in London, US, Switzerland and Asia.

Clients include city professionals, entrepreneurs and business people, owners of landed estates, sports and music stars, politicians, and their spouses/partners.

Michael is a certified family law arbitrator, and a trained collaborative lawyer. He has been a member of Resolution’s Cohabitation Committee since its inception in 1995.

Michael has for several years been listed as a leading family lawyer in the legal directories (including Chambers & Partners, Legal 500, Spears, and Citywealth) in which he has variously been described in recent years as ‘a real class act’; ‘measured, sensible and knows his law’; ‘highly intelligent, very efficient and a pleasure to deal with - a really strong practitioner’; ‘is just excellent and often sought after by high net worth individuals’; and a ‘first-class lawyer’.

Natalie is a specialist family lawyer, senior professional support lawyer and Resolution-trained mediator with 25 years’ experience in family law.

Natalie joined the Withers family team in 2004 as a solicitor in a professional support role (having worked in private practice until then). Natalie advises on all financial and private children matters, with particular emphasis on nuptial agreements and cases involving complex international elements. She also provides specialist research, technical advice, to her fellow Withers solicitors. Natalie organises and delivers training and seminars and is heavily involved and invested in the numerous knowledge management services at Withers which help to maintain the team’s position as market leaders and law-makers in family law.

Natalie is a member of Resolution, the Family Knowledge Lawyer Network, a former founder member of YRES, and previously served on the Resolution Mediation Committee and the Parents after Parting Working Party. She is a regular contributor to Family Law, Family Law Journal, LexisNexis, ThoughtLeaders4HNW Divorce and Withers podcasts and has a first class degree and distinctions in her post grad legal qualifications.’

Katherine advises and acts in all areas of matrimonial finance. She has experience in dealing with complex cases involving high net worth and high profile individuals. She also advises and acts in relation to claims brought under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989.

Katherine advises and acts in all areas of private law children work. She has experience in dealing with complex cases involving internal and external relocation and intractable contact disputes.

Katherine is also a qualified Mediator.

As a Chartered Financial Planner with over 20 years of experience at the highest level, I have a clear vision of what financial planning should really look like. As a result, my clients are able to articulate what they want to achieve in their life, and how their financial arrangements contribute to this.

I aspire to be a “trusted adviser” for my clients by working in conjunction with their other professional advisers (tax, legal and accounting) to deliver a joined up approach to their affairs. Joining Partners Wealth Management has enabled me to do this in a way that is fully independent via a proposition that is market leading with cutting edge technology that clients can access.

The clients I advise have differing backgrounds and experience, and are at all life stages from those accumulating wealth to those in retirement focused on estate planning. I treat every client I work with as an individual, and give them the time and safe environment to explore what is important to them. It is only when I understand this that an effective financial plan can be put into place.

My clients find this approach genuinely exciting, as it allows them to understand their finances in level of accessibility that is completely refreshing and in a way that is easily digestible. This level of freedom and expertise brings a wealth of benefits to clients, and is something that is different from our peers.

Away from work, I spend the majority of my time with my family. However when I get the time, I also enjoy photography, amateur dramatics and the theatre.

I am a qualified Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist I trained at WPF Therapy in London. I am a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP).

As well as working in private practice, I have worked as a bereavement counsellor in the Camden, City & Islington Bereavement Service and as an honorary psychotherapist in the NHS exploring with patients some of the psychological issues underlying their health problems.

Simon is a member of the International Academy of Family Lawyers. He has lectured for the College of Law and was one of the first family law mediators trained by the Family Mediators Association. He was Chair of the Association between 1995 and 1997, and was Vice-Chair of the United Kingdom College of Family Mediators between 1996 and 1998. He remains an accredited and practising family mediator. He is a trained Collaborative lawyer.

Simon was one of 12 members of the ‘small but hugely experienced’ working group, chaired by Mrs Justice Roberts, and appointed by the Family Justice Council as part of its primary role to promote an inter-disciplinary approach to family justice. In 2016, the group produced the publication “Sorting Out Finances on Divorce”, to help litigants in person manage the difficult process of negotiating their own agreements as well as the first edition of “Guidance on ‘Financial Needs‘ on Divorce” intended for the judiciary with a view to trying ensure a uniformity of approach across the family courts; the second edition of this informative guide was published in 2018 . Simon is consistently ranked for both Family Law and Family Mediation in the Legal 500 and as a Leading Individual in Chambers & Partners.

David is a Partner, a Solicitor and the Head of Family Law and Divorce at Simpson Millar. He supports our growing team of Family Solicitors operating out of offices in London, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Lancaster.

He has practised exclusively in Family Law for over a decade and before joining Simpson Millar, he worked in a senior role for the UK's largest full service law firm, ranked Tier 1 in the Legal 500 and Band 1 in the UK Chambers & Partners directory.