Family Law Solicitors

It can be extremely frightening when social services get involved in your family. Social services’ job is to protect children, so they often have to go through a lengthy, formal process to make sure children are safe at home.

It is completely normal to be worried about your children being taken into care. In most cases, the local authority doesn’t want to remove a child from their home – they understand that most of the time a child’s place is with their family. However, we know that this doesn’t make the process any less scary or upsetting for you.

Our specialist family solicitors can advise people about all matters relating to social services and children, including:

• Pre-Proceedings Meetings
• Care proceedings
• Care Orders
• Supervision Orders
• Emergency Protection Orders
• Discharge of Care Orders
• Placement Orders (adoption)

We will be by your side every step of the way, helping you cooperate with social services and ensuring that your feelings and parental rights are understood and taken into account.

When it is time to part ways with someone you used to (or still) love dearly, it is normal to feel lost and adrift. Your life is changing so much and you will surely be going through a range of emotions, from sadness to anger, to hope and relief.

We are here to help you get your life back on track and start moving toward a brighter future. Our expertise includes helping people through:

• Divorce
• Civil partnership dissolution
• Separation Agreements (Deeds of Separation)
• Cohabitation disputes – resolving problems that might arise after you break up with someone you were not married or in a civil partnership with

We can assist with everything, including:

• Completing legal documentation – such as divorce petitions
• Advising you through negotiations with your ex-partner – such as agreeing to a division of finances or a co-parenting plan
• Advising you about using mediation and other alternative dispute resolution methods to help you resolve disagreements
• Making and responding to a wide range of court applications on your behalf

Family finances can cause a lot of relationship strain, especially after your relationship has broken down. Our experienced family law solicitors can assist with all legal issues regarding family finances, including:

• Agreeing on financial settlements on divorce, dissolution or separation
• Agreeing on financial Support for partners and children (spousal maintenance and child maintenance)
• Resolving finances disputes

Family law issues such as divorce can be especially stressful when children are involved. Even a happy event such as adoption is a long, difficult process, so having the right support on the side is key.

Protecting your children and making sure they are the safe, happy and healthy will of course be one of your greatest priorities. We understand the pressures you are under and you can rest assured that the welfare and happiness of your children will come first at all times.

We are skilled at helping parents and other family members (such as grandparents) find positive, long-term solutions, in most cases without going anywhere near a courtroom. Our child law solicitors’ expertise includes:

• General children’s matters, such as agreeing to co-parenting plans after divorce or dissolution
• Contact disputes
• Child Arrangements Orders
• Specific Issue Orders and Prohibited Steps Orders
• Consent Orders – these types of court order can make an agreement you made out-of-court legally binding
• Adoption
• Special guardianship
• Change of name
• Parental responsibility
• Grandparents’ rights
• Protecting children from domestic abuse

Protecting your financial interests is important in any relationship – you don’t always know where the future will take you and whether the relationship may break down one day.

Whether you are married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting with your partner, we can help you take steps to safeguard your finances by putting in place a carefully drafted legal agreement.

Agreements such as pre-nuptial agreements and cohabitation agreements are contracts you can enter into with your partner to set out:

• Who owns what in your relationship
• How money and property should be split if you ever break up in the future

We know it’s not the most romantic way to embark on the next stage of your relationship and hopefully, you will never need your agreement, but just having it in place could save you considerable stress and heartache later on.

Our expertise includes:

• Pre-nuptial agreements and pre-civil partnership agreements – agreements made before you get married or enter into a civil partnership
• Post-nuptial agreements and post-civil partnership agreements – agreements made after you get married or enter into a civil partnership
• Cohabitation agreements – agreements between partners who are not married or in a civil partnership (but in most cases live together or are about to move in together).

Nobody has the right to make you feel unsafe or threaten you or your children. If you have been hurt (either physically, verbally, emotionally or any other way) by a partner, ex-partner or family member, our friendly, discreet solicitors are here to help you in whatever ways we can.

Domestic abuse comes in so many different forms, so do not worry about whether the abuse is ‘enough’ for legal help – Everyone deserves support when they ask for it. We will provide confidential advice and take all possible steps to support you as you leave the abusive situation.

Our services include helping you get legal protection from the courts and any other family law matter where there has been domestic abuse. Our domestic abuse solicitors’ expertise includes:

• Injunctions/Non-Molestation Orders
• Occupation Orders
• Divorce, dissolution and separation where there has been domestic abuse
• Social services and care proceedings involving domestic abuse
• Protecting children from domestic violence
• Other legal advice, such as conveyancing