Meet Jim
I joined Lawrence Stephens' Family team in June 2023.
I qualified as a solicitor in 2004, training in a leading regional firm. Since then, I have worked in Kent, Sussex and London, specialising exclusively in family law. I have in-depth experience in a range of areas including dealing with financial settlements or children cases. For some years, I was a member of the Law Society Children’s Panel and dealt with complex cases where the children were parties to the litigation.
Before qualifying as a solicitor, I worked for 15 years in the Central Family Court based in London. I have experience in all forms of family litigation, involving a range of assets and jurisdictions.
I take a pragmatic view to cases and while I look to reach agreement where possible, I am always prepared to take a case to court if it is justified.
Outside of work, I enjoy all things Italian and Portsmouth Football club - a truly dynamic combination.
Experience highlights
- Carrying out advocacy at an eight-day fact-finding hearing while representing children
- In private law proceedings, carrying out advocacy for children in a fact-finding hearing involving a father alleged to have sexually abused his children
- Acting for a husband in a successful variation of a joint lives maintenance application; obtaining a discharge of the joint lives order
- Acted on behalf of the husband in a landmark reported financial remedies case concerning the provenance of assets and the approach when pre-marital assets had been used as a matrimonial home.
- Acting successfully for a wife in maintenance pension suit application, and subsequent proceedings to a final hearing at which she received a substantial pension share order, maintenance order and lump sum order
- Protecting a Police Pension while acting for a husband, by successfully offsetting claims made by his wife
- Acting for a wife in a complex jurisdiction dispute involving the UAE in children and financial remedy claims
