Chelmsford Family Law Solicitors

Chelmsford Family Law Solicitors – who are we?

At Birketts, we have a large diverse group of family solicitors based in Chelmsford:

• Our family law lawyers undertake a great deal of work within the court arena.
• Our family law lawyers also utilise non-court dispute resolution, where appropriate, to settle matters out of court. We use a variety of methods to aid settlement to avoid a judge imposing a decision on our clients wherever possible, whilst ensuring the decisions reached are legally binding when necessary.  
• Some lawyers within our family law team focus more on disputes involving financial issues and some focus more on disputes involving issues with children.
• We support and advise modern families, recognising that family structures have evolved in modern society.
• We advise clients on prenuptial and other agreements.
• Many of our cases involve allegations of domestic abuse and we offer support and guidance to clients when navigating such difficult issues.

Our team has a great deal of knowledge of private financial work involving complex company structures, assets abroad and complex pension structures and trusts. We also have significant knowledge of complex children work, often acting on behalf of parents and wider family members who cannot resolve issues surrounding children. We cover every area of private family law, to include niches and complex issues.

Chelmsford Family Law Solicitors – who do we help?

At Birketts, we work with clients from a diverse range of backgrounds across Essex and beyond:

• Financial issues on separation or divorce and arising from cohabitation or plans to marry:
  • We work with director shareholders, family companies, farming families, financial advisors and high net worth individuals.
  • We work collaboratively with our colleagues in other teams, to include corporate, private client, employment, agriculture, tax and property teams.   This ensures that we give the very best advice to our client across all of the different issues that can arise within divorce, including those outside of the family arena.
  • Our clients include other professionals (bankers, accountants, solicitors and brokers) or their spouses.

• Issues involving children:
  • Our solicitors have extensive experience in assisting with private adoption cases and surrogacy. They regularly assist clients with issues faced by modern families.
  • We work with parents, stepparents and grandparents to assist with their arrangements for children to include where there are allegations that the children are at risk of harm. This includes advising on obtaining parental responsibility for the children and obtaining special guardianship orders.
  • We also regularly advise clients on international issues involving children, including relocation.
• We have extensive experience in providing compassionate advice and help to those suffering from or accused of domestic abuse.

Our Family Law solicitors help a wide range of individuals using Non-Court Dispute Resolution in Chelmsford, Essex and beyond:

• We work with arbitrators to obtain a legally binding decision outside of court.
• Our team includes one of the few Solicitor Arbitrators in Essex. She is able to make binding decisions regarding a couple’s finances when they are unable to reach agreement with the assistance of their solicitors.
• We regularly use Early Neutral Evaluators to provide opinions to both parties in our cases to unlock negotiations. Our arbitrator also acts as an Early Neutral Evaluator to help unlock cases within mediation or where the couple’s solicitors cannot help them to reach agreement.
• Our team includes experienced mediators, who can assist parties in reaching an agreement in relation to both children and financial matters.
• We also provide assistance to clients who would like to use mediation to reach an agreement, either supporting our clients in the background or attending mediation with them.
• We are able to work using the collaborative law model as our team includes experienced collaboratively trained lawyers
• Our team includes lawyers who are trained in Resolution Together / One Couple, One Lawyer, an approach that advises both sides on a divorce where appropriate. 

Often, our clients are facing complex issues involving children, finances and domestic abuse.

We are uniquely placed in Essex as our team includes solicitors with a diverse skill set both using the courts and dealing with matters outside of contested court proceedings. 

Chelmsford Family Law Solicitors – why choose us?

Given our depth of knowledge and the size of our team, we believe that we can offer you an excellent service using the right family lawyer. We have experience of advising the full range of clients across many, often complex, issues and have knowledge not reflected in the local legal market:

• We are uniquely placed in Essex to offer help and advice from experienced solicitors, an Arbitrator, Mediators, Collaborative Lawyers and lawyers offering to work for both parties to a family law dispute when appropriate. 
• Our family law solicitors are all members of Resolution and include Resolution accredited specialists in financial remedies, private children law and adoption law.
• Our family law team is one of the few in Essex recognised as “Tier one” in both the Legal 500 and Chambers directories.

Our social responsibilities are important to us, and members of our team regularly provide pro bono advice at the Anglia Ruskin University law clinic, for clients of the Citizens Advice Bureau and through Lighthouse Women’s Aid.

Most importantly, client care is incredibly important to us. We care about the situations our client’s find themselves in. We listen to what you say and help you to choose the appropriate method to resolve matters, whilst giving you realistic advice throughout your matter.

Fixed fee pricing is available.