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JULY 2013
Legal Focus
75
assets abroad. We are often instructed by foreign lawyers to deal with matters in England. We have a network of lawyers around the world with whom we work very closely. Specifically we have an association with Watts McCray of Sydney, one of Australia’s leading family law firms. This association has been very successful for us and them and our mutual clients. We undertake marital agreements and cross- border ADR such as mediation and arbitration.
As far as children are concerned, we are regularly instructed by the UK Government to act in Hague Convention child abduction cases and we have a specialist team undertaking this work.
It requires a very
distinctive and fast response way of working. Quite often one parent may want to move abroad with a child and there are many so-called relocation applications. Sometimes the work is simply contact arrangements across borders.
One important area is cross border recognition of foreign marriages and divorces. This should be straightforward but rarely is, yet is fundamental for those concerned.
I myself handle the more complicated financial cases but we have deliberately structured our practice so that we have middle ranking and junior partners and assistant solicitors able to take on a variety of cases with an international element. About 20 years or so ago, an international family law case usually meant mega wealth and often mega glamour. It has all changed especially with the EU and the ease of travel and work abroad. When setting up the practice, we were very conscious that there were many clients who were not overtly wealthy but who nevertheless needed specialist international family law assistance which was not always available across the profession. Hence as a practice we have encouraged a range of lawyers with expertise and specialist knowledge to help a range of clients from the very wealthy to middle income/assets.
What do you think are the main future challenges for the practice?
Apart from the obvious challenges such as the ever-increasing regulatory burden on all firms and the huge cost it creates, we are very
optimistic for the future. There will be more and more international families. The EU is producing legislation at a colossal rate which is highly complex. This is mainly because it is based on civil law, continental European principles and therefore very alien to our common law, discretionary English approach. By being absolutely on top of the legislation and international trends, we are able to continue to provide a first rate service.
Although inevitably national family law will be part of the commoditisation of legal services, it has so many pitfalls as far as the uncertainty of costs are concerned that it will be less attractive to corporate entities than other areas of work. The role of the boutique specialist will remain.
What would certainly help is English law and EU law becoming more certain and predictable. This is very necessary for international families. Relationship breakup is bad enough for the parties concerned and their children without the huge extra burdens of uncertainty about where the proceedings will take place, which law and what outcome. A lot could be done by the EU to make it easier for international families. Too often it has seemed that they are running their own civil law agenda without regard to the practicalities facing families and their advisers on relationship breakdown.
One stunning example, not sufficiently known, was the introduction of a law across the EU in March 2001 known as Brussels II. This introduced common jurisdiction for divorce across the EU which is highly commendable. But with many international families having a connection with more than one country, it had to decide a forum criteria; i.e. which EU country would deal with a couple’s legal affairs if more than one country could do so? It chose the deceptively simplistically easy test of which party issued proceedings first. This is irrespective of any close connection. The consequence has introduced “racing” into family law practice. With financial outcomes so dramatically different across Europe, favouring either the husband or the wife, all that matters is who wins the race to the divorce court by a matter of minutes. As a practice we have had to adapt to win. We have special policies and practices to make sure that when we are first consulted we can act fast to win the race on behalf of our