Going through a divorce and agreeing how to share your assets can be traumatic with so many decisions to be made. How will the family home be shared? How will maintenance payments for children be agreed? How will you decide school holidays?
Our direct access family barristers are here to help ease the stress of this process and guide you through the court and legal process. We have a number of specialist direct access barristers with experience ranging from high value cases involving complex asset structures and foreign jurisdictions to cases involving modest assets and high indebtedness.
Whether through careful negotiation or conducting contested hearings, we offer the highest quality advice, meticulous preparation and excellent advocacy.
We also have a team of mediators and arbitrators who are available as an alternative route to resolve any conflicts without having to go through the Courts at all. This provides you with the opportunity to have a faster, cheaper and remote resolution than going to work.
Essentially it means managing disputes related to family finance and the process of sharing your assets following a divorce, breakdown of cohabitation, civil partnership matters.
We are able to represent any one both in Court and in mediations and arbitrations. This can include co-habitee disputes relating to the family home, financial provisions following the death of a family member, enforcement proceedings, pre- and post-nuptial agreements and much more. If you have been unhappy with your representation, we can represent you in professional negligence claims arising from financial remedy proceedings. In addition, we have specialist Arbitrators and Mediators you can appoint for alternative dispute resolution.
Yes, we can handle claims relating to specific financial remedies for children, custody arrangements and contact etc.
Some cases will go to Court. We also have a team of mediators and arbitrators who are available as an alternative route to resolve any conflicts without having to go through the Courts at all.
Pets are defined as personal property. This means that, unless specified in a contract (e.g. pre-nuptial agreement, sale etc.) other factors will determine ownership; who paid for your pet, any contract in place regarding ownership, who has funded vet visits, food etc. This does not settle contact arrangements, which are best set out using mediation. Any puppies, kittens or offspring typically go with the mother.
We’ve explained frequently used matrimonial legal terms here. (hyperlink: https://barristerforme.com/family-legal-terms-explained-matrimonial/)
Direct Access, also known as Public Access, allows you to directly instruct a barrister to act on your behalf, without using a solicitor or intermediary as is traditional. You are managing your case. However, not all cases are suitable for direct access and only barristers specifically trained to accept direct access instruction can assist you. Meet our trained barristers here.
We use a 4 step process outlining how you can instruct a barrister directly: Enquire, Discuss, Confirm, Instruct. Each stage is designed so we can make sure your case is suitable for direct access. It enables our clerks to find the right barrister, at the right price, for the right time just for you. Read more about the process here.
Each case is different and some cases are not suitable for direct access instruction. For this area Clients using legal aid are not suitable for Direct Access so should instruct us using a solicitor.
Some cases require more day to day management so are not suitable for direct access. In this case, we will not progress beyond the Enquiry stage of our process but you can instruct us using a solicitor.
Costs vary depending on what your case needs: the work required, length of time and seniority of barrister. Fees can be a fixed amount for agreed upon work or an hourly rate with a set limit so you don’t go over an agreed upon budget. Generally speaking, the more work involved/longer the case will take/more senior (and thus experienced) the barrister, the higher the cost is likely to be.
More information can be found here.
The Direct Access Portal is the official website for this type of work and is supported by the Bar Council.
Upon receiving this enquiry form a Public Access Clerk will contact you to discuss your case in further detail. Please see our 4 steps outlining the process of instructing a Direct Access Barrister.
1. Submit an enquiry
Fill out our form, designed to collect as much information as possible about your case.
2. Speak to a clerk
After carefully reviewing your form, a specially trained Clerk will get in touch to confirm if your case is suitable for one of our Direct Access Barristers.
3. Receive a client care pack
Once our Direct Access Barrister has agreed in principle to represent you, you will be sent a ‘client care letter’.
4. Instructing a Barrister
If you want to go ahead after agreeing to your client care letter, it’s time to instruct your Direct Access Barrister. Download a PDF of this process here.
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