Bio
Jo is a Family Partner.
With more than 30 years’ experience in family law, Jo specialises in advising on arrangements for children following their parents separating.
She works with couples and families in marriages, civil partnerships, or living together, including families where one person lives or wishes to relocate overseas.
Jo’s areas of expertise include negotiating, and seeking court approval for, decisions about where children should live and how much time they spend with each parent, alongside resolving disputes over issues such as parental responsibility or education (often involving a change of geographical residence in the UK and overseas).
She also oversees finding-of-fact cases which are entrenched due to allegations of domestic abuse and parental alienating behaviours, and financial disputes following separation breakdown, property claims for separating married and unmarried couples, and the preparation of pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements for couples looking to protect their wealth or business assets.
Examples of Jo’s expertise include:
- Advising on a Children Act application which was matrixed around a finding-of-fact exercise, and led to a two-year-long litigated case which culminated in our client being cleared of serious harm and abuse allegations, the child being considered for a change of residence to our client’s care.
- Negotiating a substantial settlement for the unmarried partner of a well-known footballer, with whom she had a child and later separated.
- Securing a court award of all financial assets by investigating and proving that bank statements provided by the spouse during the divorce were fraudulent.
- Negotiating an amicable agreement on arrangements for children, without going to court, when one parent wished to relocate to South Africa.
- Preventing the removal of a child to Australia on behalf of one parent who was ill and would be unable to visit.