Family Law can have many issues to be addressed. It can be complicated and nuanced.
With an exceptional level of service to our clients, we assist clients in providing strategic and commercial advice in respect of financial matters arising from a marriage or relationship breakdown be it a matter involving a family home, a family business, or involving complex corporate structures and interests.
We recognise the nuanced and personal nature of each family law matter. We understand that the handling of parenting disputes and care arrangements for children requires careful and considered professional attention.
Whether we are preparing a pre-nuptial agreement, a parenting plan or safeguarding our clients’ interests in negotiating a settlement or litigating for our clients in court , we provide strategic advice and robust representation, with clear focus on achieving the best possible resolution in a cost-effective manner.
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Initial AdviceIt is important that you receive early and correct legal advice to decide on the best approach for your matter.
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Second Opinion
You may have existing lawyers assisting you with your family law case. Your relationship with your lawyer may be largely satisfactory but there may be reasons why you feel the need to have a second legal opinion.
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Your Initial
ConsultationIt is important to us that you are given the time to feel comfortable and confident in the way we can resolve your family law issues and for us to fully understand those issues and what you want to achieve.
It is important that you receive early and correct legal advice to decide on the best approach for your matter. Receiving early legal advice does not mean that you must begin a legal process. It will leave you feeling more confident and less anxious about your current situation. It may reduce the possibility of dispute and allow you to be fully informed about the available avenues to achieve resolution.
Time limits may apply to obtain a financial settlement. Certain steps are required to be undertaken to formalise a financial settlement to ensure that it is final, binding and compliant. It is important that legal advice is sought early regarding parenting arrangements, particularly if you do not consider that they are in the best interests of your children, or your former spouse is proposing to change living arrangements that could adversely impact you maintaining a relationship with your children.
You may have existing lawyers assisting you with your family law case. Your relationship with your lawyer may be largely satisfactory but there may be reasons why you feel the need to have a second legal opinion:
- You may lack overall confidence in the advice that you are receiving, and this concern has grown over time.
- You may feel that your lawyer is not listening to you and your concerns or expectations are being ignored.
- The strategy in your matter is unclear and you do not feel, despite your requests, that it has been sufficiently explained to you.
- Your case has reached a critical point in court, or you are at the stage where you need to make an offer of settlement and you lack confidence in the course being suggested or have doubts about the prospects of the outcome.
We can help you if you find yourself in one of these situations. We will examine the facts of your matter and assess the advice that you are being given. In most cases we will not need your existing file so your existing lawyer will not know that you are seeking a second legal opinion.
We will tell you, clearly and comprehensively, if we take a different view to your existing lawyers or if we agree with the action that they are taking on your behalf. In some cases, the strategy being pursued on your behalf maybe sound but your lawyers may not have taken the time to explain why a particular strategy is being adopted.
We appreciate that it is crucial that you feel that you are in control of your case. We will ensure that we provide you a complete understanding of the law as it applies to your circumstances in simple language and the most effective avenues to resolve your case.
By providing a second legal opinion, we may allow you to regain the confidence of knowing that your existing lawyer is on the right track. Alternatively, we can provide you with the right questions to ask your existing lawyer to test that a particular strategy is in your best interests.
There are occasions when, following advice from us by way of second legal opinion, you may wish to transfer conduct of your matter from your existing lawyers to us. We would be happy to assist should that be your decision.
It is important to us that you are given the time to feel comfortable and confident in the way we can resolve your family law issues and for us to fully understand those issues and what you want to achieve.
For this reason, we provide a fixed fee, no time limit initial consultation. There are no obligations and there are no additional costs for the initial consultation.
During our discussion, we will ask you questions to prepare an initial chronology of your relationship.
We understand that you may have a lot of questions and queries. If you like, prepare a list of them. We take the time to answer all the questions and address all the uncertainties you have.
If you have received letters or documents from your former spouse’s lawyer, please bring the documents with you or e-mail beforehand.
If you seek advice about financial matters, it would be helpful to prepare a broad schedule of your assets, liabilities and superannuation, owned individually or jointly with your former spouse or third party.
If you or your spouse has a trust or company, it would assist to view recent financial documents for those entities. Please do not worry if you know little about them. We can address that later.
Before speaking with us, please do not retain valuers to ascertain the value of any assets, the value of which you do not know or are uncertain about.
From the initial information we gain from you we will give you a preliminary view of the likely best outcome and we will propose pathways to a resolution to give you confidence and better certainty moving forward.
