Cambridge Family Law Practice

How would you describe your role at Cambridge Family Law Practice?

I and the other partners have fairly similar roles, with some degree of specialism factored in. We all undertake money and private children work, as well as divorce and separation. My colleague Jeremy does have a slightly more niche practice in relation to children work.

As for myself, I’m a qualified arbitrator. This involves effectively acting as a private Judge. I arbitrate for families in dispute about arrangements for their children. In that role I make decisions about where they should live, the time they should spend with their other parent, which schools they will go to, their surnames where those are in dispute, and that sort of thing.

Arbitration is an out of court settlement process, so it offers certain advantages over going to Court. It’s tailored to the family’s circumstances and needs, and it can deal with exactly the issues the parents want it to, so they have a far greater degree of control over both the process and the outcome – which they like, as you’d expect.

The key difference is that you’re paying for your Judge, as opposed to dealing with any disputes through the Court but, quite frankly, the fact that it takes you far less time to get before that Judge does mean the process is really streamlined and efficient. Therefore the overall outlay on costs, even including each of you paying 50 per cent for the Judge, can be far less, for a faster, more tailored process.

Courtrooms are not great places: they can be terribly impersonal, and the legal process dry and slow. You can avoid courtrooms altogether with arbitration. Instead you come to somebody’s office and have a drink of tea or coffee and experience a much more civilized, humanised service.

Looking back across your career, do any cases stand out as especially memorable or meaningful?

I represented a EuroMillions winner: he and his wife won a huge amount of money. Happily it was very easy to divide that large portfolio equally.

I’ve represented some senior barristers; it was an honour to be approached to work with and advise people you admire professionally.

Word of mouth is a very helpful and honest way of enhancing your business. I recently listened to an interview with former heavyweight champion Vladimir Klitschko, whose brother Vitaly is seemingly doing an incredible job as the Mayor of Kiev in the most awful of circumstances. He commented that maintaining and building any reputation is like pushing a boulder up a hill: it’s very hard to get to the top, and with a single slip the boulder rolls down the hill, leaving you to have to start again from scratch.

You qualified in 1998. Could you give a summary of your career since then?

I was at small local firm for ten years at the beginning of my career; they specialised in sports law, and I came to run the family team. I arrived from London for that job, and they were very good to and for me; great people. I started life as a trainee solicitor and left as a partner.

It was a great opportunity to be involved even in a small way with horse racing. Newmarket might be the only place I’ve ever been where the horses have priority on the roads; there are two horse walks either side of the entrance to the town to cross the gallops and the jockeys activate the traffic lights when they’re ready to cross the road: and the traffic light system is fairly new!

The time came when I felt the need to hone my largely self-taught knowledge of family law so I moved to what became, whilst I was there, the biggest family team in the world. I felt that I learned much from working in a large, corporate environment. But equally I missed the autonomy of having two hands on the steering wheel, and the opportunity to work again in a smaller environment with like-minded people was too good to turn down: thus after 5 years I moved to Cambridge Family Law Practice, and have been here for 12 years now.

Finally, what are you interests outside work?

I was thrilled the Lionesses won the Euros last summer. I watched the games with my two avid football-playing 11 year old girls; just great for promoting women’s football. I’m currently volunteering as an assistant referee for their club games every Saturday, which is a different pace and environment to helping out with the training at my elder daughter’s swimming club, where I was also the safeguarding officer.

For my sins I remain a Spurs fan, but the least said about that at the moment the better. I try to keep fit and tend to ride into work a couple of times a week. And since lockdown I’ve rediscovered my love of cooking. Most meals finish with empty plates!