Family Law

Care Proceedings

At all stages - emergency protection, interim and final hearings and placement for adoption.

Adoption Proceedings

Contested or not.

Children-private Law

proceedings of all kinds: residence (interim and final), contact (interim and final), specific issue, prohibited steps, change of name, parental responsibility, leave to remove from jurisdiction etc.

Injunctions

Both occupation orders and non-molestation orders. Without notice and on-notice consequent Family Law Act provisions such as protection of property and payment of outgoings.

Ancillary Relief

At all stages- FDA, FDR and final hearing. Section 37 protection of assets. 

 

Court of Protection 

The Court of Protection deals with applications relating to people who lack mental capacity.  Cases before the Court of Protection can involve family law, mental health law, community care law and social housing law.
The Court of Protection can deal with matters relating to an individual’s personal welfare, becoming a deputy or to change an existing deputy order, deprivation of liberty, selling jointly owned property, making a statutory will or gift, cancelling an enduring power of attorney or to object to a lasting power of attorney
The New Walk Chambers Court of Protection team has barristers who are specialists in one or more of the linked areas of practice. Their extensive, specialist knowledge of a range of legal areas is crucial and barristers can draft applications, appear in court and provide advisory work. We are able to deal with cases under the High Court’s jurisdiction relating to vulnerable adults and matters under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Members of Chambers welcome instructions from Local Authorities, Health care bodies, the Official Solicitor, litigation friend or family members in all areas of England and Wales.

Court of Protection address: PO Box 70185, First Avenue House, 42-49 High Holborn, London, WC1A 9JA.

Areas of work

Advising Local Authorities in relation to safeguarding duties and on the community care law issues arising in cases in the Court of Protection.
Proceedings relating to 16 and 17 year olds, and the overlapping jurisdictions of the Court of Protection and Children Act 1989.
Applications in relation to serious medical treatment.
Emergency applications, such as the transfer to a new care setting of a person lacking capacity, requiring a transfer plan with potential deprivation of liberty, requiring advance authorisation by the Court.
Personal welfare applications. This may include whether it is in an individual’s best interests to live in a residential care or family home or another care setting. We can also deal with decisions on complex/interventionist care packages which may involve deprivation or restriction of liberty and with disagreements in relation to arrangements for contact with family members.
Section 21A applications under the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS), challenging authorisations of deprivation of an individual’s liberty in care homes or hospitals.
Dealing with contested applications for the appointment of deputies (in financial or welfare matters), and other property and affairs applications. These may include arrangements for the affairs of an individual necessitated by transfer to supported living or into long-term residential care. Also, matters under Lasting Powers of Attorney which may include applications to revoke the power by the Office of the Public Guardian.

Child Support Appeal Tribunals

Advices will be written and conference held upon request at any stage of any of the above proceedings.

Our family law barristers deal regularly with work in the following courts (among others):

• Leicester county court
• Leicester family proceedings court
• Nottingham county court
• Nottingham family proceedings court
• Coventry county court
• Coventry family proceedings court
• Northampton county court
• Northampton family proceedings court
• Peterborough county court
• Peterborough family proceedings court
• Derby county court
• Derby family proceedings court
• Lincoln county court
• Lincoln family proceedings court

If you wish to find a barrister in family law who can deal with you under the direct access scheme, then please contact the clerks by email.

The family law barristers group consists of:

• Rebecca Fitton-Brown
• Romasa Butt 
• William Falshaw
• Stuart Lewis 
• Kajal Dasani
• Victoria Brankovic
• Wayne Smith 
• Atif Mian
• Gary Peake 
• Deirdre Smyth
• Keith Hathaway
• Josh Radcliffe 
• Francis Dignan

PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENTS

Prenuptial agreements are particularly popular as a way to try to protect the assets of High Net Worth Individuals, HNWI, who are entering into marriage or civil partnership and who have concerns about those assets, in the unfortunate event of a divorce or a relationship breakdown. Increasingly many ordinary people are now using them in an attempt to protect pensions, property, other assets and their long-term financial security.

These agreements go by many names such as pre-nups, prenups, pre-nuptials, antenuptial agreement, premarital agreement, marriage contracts or more formally pre-nuptial agreements.

They are entered into prior to marriage or a civil union to set out how the couples’ respective assets should be treated if the marriage fails. Recent changes in the UK mean that heterosexual couples can have civil partnerships just as same-sex couples do.

Prenuptial agreements come in many forms but may include provisions for spousal support and for division of property in the event of the breakup of the marriage or a divorce.

Are Prenuptial Agreements legally binding in the UK?
Prenups are not legally binding at present in the UK. Judge’s, however, are increasingly taking prenuptials into account during the decision process.

The Supreme Court recognised the validity of such agreements in 2010.

Following the decision of Radmacher v Grantino in 2010, there are now an increasing number of cases coming before the Courts involving prenuptial agreements.

More recently the Law Commission recommended that prenuptial agreements should be legally binding in divorce settlements. The Commission used the term, Qualifying Nuptial Agreements (QNA) which covers various types of marital agreement including the prenup or prenuptial agreement.

As long as various safeguards have been met they may well uphold the essence of the agreement.

Those safeguards may include:

• The agreement being signed ‘not less than’ twenty-eight days before the marriage. Both parties need to be fully honest about their assets and not try to mask them.
• Both partners need to received independent legal advice about the pre-nuptial agreement from the start, with no pressure or duress being used against either partner to sign the agreement.
• Any agreement has to be fair and realistic to both husband and wife.
• It is important for Prenuptial agreements to be reviewed and if necessary amended throughout the marriage. This is most important where there are children.
• There have been no significant change which may mean that the prenup is no longer appropriate.
• The agreement needs to be contractually valid and enforceable and must be made by deed.
• The parties to the pre-nup agreement need to state that they understand that the QNA will restrict the court's discretion to make financial orders.

If the above safeguards are not met the prenuptial agreement is unlikely to be upheld by the courts.

If you are considering entering into a pre-nuptial then you may wish to think about changes thought the course of the marriage which may impact the overall tenor of the agreement. These may include the length of the marriage, one partner giving up their career to act as a carer or to look after children or the impact of any future commercial business which they enter into together.

The information provided on this page is purely discursory. This is a relatively new and constantly evolving area of the law and we can accept no responsibility as to its accuracy.

You are strongly advised to seek the advice of a qualified lawyer, a barrister or a solicitor, if you need require a prenuptial agreement.

The postnuptial agreement, or as it is sometimes termed - post-marital agreement or just post-nup) does, in effect much the same as a pre-nuptial agreement. – It also sets out what should happen with assets in the event of a marriage breakdown or a relationship breakdown.

The difference with a post-nup is that it is entered into by the couple during the course of their civil partnership or marriage. Post-nuptial agreements may be entered into where a pre-nup was not signed previously. Alternatively, where there has been infidelity and one partner wishes to increase their security if they stay in the relationship or possibly where couples separated and are getting back together.