Our Approach

No one wants to be in Family Court or to have to deal with the Child Maintenance Service, unless they are trying to screw someone over.  Our clients are the ones someone is trying to screw over.  The key to navigating family court successfully (and when I say successfully I mean with the least amount of damage possible under the circumstances), is to understand quickly what the other side are trying to achieve, why they are trying to achieve it in the way that they are, what is the likely nature of the guidance they are receiving, what truth is there to the claims that they are making, and how to quickly identify evidence that demonstrates claims being made are either false, half truths or exaggerations, and what relevance they present in terms of any restrictions in contact with children or financial demands that they have made.  

Getting to grips with allegations that have been manufactured or inflated is usually fairly straight forward, there is normally evidence of some form that claimed events havent happened or that innocent events have been reframed to be something untoward.  Where there is no specific evidence, the other side still needs to have evidence, and so often a lack of particular types of supporting evidence one would expect were a particular claim to be truthful, is undermined by those types of evidence not having been produced.   To keep a clients costs down, we invite them to engage fully in gathering and reviewing of evidence, and pulling together the timeline and supporting narrative so that statements for court are easy to understand, backed by clear evidence trail that is well referenced and easy to navigate, so a great deal of the way we operate is to give clients the guidance they need so that they can get a large amount of the required work done in a way that presents their case in a clear and compelling way.  Its hard work, but clients are always the experts in their own case, they just need an experienced guide to show them the way and make sure they avoid treading on any landmines (so to speak) along the way.  

Aside from evidence collation and review of any accusers evidence, much of family court process is just intensley administrative and procedural.  When you are under pressure as a litigant this can feel overwhelming, and so you become vulnerable to predatory family law practices who will view you and your family estate as the prize - with their sole aim, no matter how they dress it up with smiles and faux friendliness, being to maximise their billable hours.  In practice this means hundreds of pounds per email (usually needlessly inflamatory in nature) sent to the other side, the other side doing the same, and each side charging each party hundreds of pounds again to read those emails, and send yet more inflamatory and/or defensive communications laden with legal threats, and short on any effective solutions or efforts to improve communication between the parents.  And this is all before you even consider the costs of preparing statements, any possible expert witness costs, and costs of barrister representation on the day (expect £5k per day for a barrister to represent you for hearings that can be as short as 1 hour).  So much of this is avoidable. 

We see our job as preventing that cycle from getting off the ground, or if it already has then highlighting very quickly how innappropriate that is and taking the lead in a communication and conflict resolution strategy that gives the other side little choice but to adopt a similar approach or be seen to be needlessly and inapropriately acrimonious.  In short, we give our clients a reality check in terms of what is going on, how this will play out if it continues in the typical manner, and we invite the other side to see very clearly (but without telling them explicitly, but rather through the tone of the communication) that we are all too familiar with the typical tricks that are played by vexacious litigants and predatory family law firms.  Ultimately, if a separating family must resort to family court, it is our job to make sure that it is as easy as possible for judges and any other professionals involved to see both the truth of the matter at hand, and have sensible solutions presented that are fair and designed to get the family out of proceedings as quickly as possible with as little likelihood of a repeat performance in the future, so that they can both return to giving the best of themselves to parenting their children.