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Reform of UK divorce law

Suzanna Brown
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Reform of UK divorce law – can England and Wales learn from Scotland?  As the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 reaches its 50th anniversary, there has been debate as to whether this legislation remains fit for purpose. Lord Bellamy KC has...

Lasting Powers of Attorney Going Digital

Emily Robertson
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In 2007, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 introduced Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs), which replaced the old Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPAs). EPAs only allowed decisions to be made by an attorney on financial matters and to make decisions once a donor had...

Burgess Mee recognised in 2023 Spear's Family Law Index

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Burgess Mee Family Law is proud to have been included in the esteemed 2023 Spear's Family Law Index - an exclusive listing of the top professionals working in family law, divorce support, and litigation funding for high-net-worth (HNW) and...

Building families through surrogacy: A new law

Natalie  Sutherland
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First published on Today's Family Lawyer on 5 April 2023 - Building families through surrogacy: A new law The Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission, on the 29th March, released their report and draft bill detailing a...

Natalie Sutherland Named Woman of the Year at Awards

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Natalie Sutherland Named Woman of the Year at Women and Diversity in Law Awards Natalie Sutherland, partner at Burgess Mee Family Law, has been named Woman of the Year at the inaugural Women and Diversity in Law Awards . Hosted by The Global Legal Post,...

The Minimum Age for Marriage to be Increased to Eighteen

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The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2020 will come into effect today, 27 February 2023. The Act raises the minimum age requirement for marriage to 18 in all circumstances. Previously, 16 and 17 year olds were able to marry if they had...

Emma Morris Joins Burgess Mee Family Law as Legal Director

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Burgess Mee Family Law is pleased to announce the appointment of Emma Morris as a Legal Director. Emma, who has joined Burgess Mee from Ince (formally Gordon Dadds) will focus on high net worth matters, financial settlements and complex children work. She...

Posthumous grandchildren? The floodgates remain closed

Natalie  Sutherland
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First published on LexisNexis’ family law blog on 24 February 2023 - Posthumous grandchildren? The floodgates remain closed In  Re X (Catastrophic Injury: Collection and Storage of Sperm)  [2022] EWCOP 48, Poole J, sitting in the Court of...

How to choose which form of ADR is best for divorcing clients

David Lillywhite
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First published by  FTAdviser on 31 January 2023. According to recent data from the Ministry of Justice, 33,566 applications for divorce were made between April and June 2022, the highest rate for a decade. Whether a short-term spike following the...

How to guide clients through a divorce

David Lillywhite
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First published by  FTAdviser on 10 January 2023. With the UK spending much of the past few years in a ‘permacrisis’ (and with no sign that this will change any time soon), many individuals will have approached the holiday break as an...

London law firm accredited as "fertility-friendly employer"

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First published by workingmums on 15.12.2022. Written by  Shyamantha Asokan . Burgess Mee, a family law firm in London,  became the UK’s first accredited “fertility-friendly employer” last month.  But what does this term...

Burgess Mee Named London Law Firm of the Year

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Burgess Mee Named London Law Firm of the Year at LexisNexis Family Law Awards 2022 Burgess Mee is delighted to have been named Family Law Firm of the Year: London at the LexisNexis Family Law Awards 2022, which took place last night at the Park Plaza...

Burgess Mee acts on landmark UAE divorce forum case

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6 October 2022 Judgment in SA vs FA is highly significant for divorcing UAE-based expats Burgess Mee Family Law has advised on a reported precedent-setting forum case that impacts divorcing expats based in the UAE (see link to judgment , which has...

Joint Divorces - a false dawn or a new frontier?

Shaili Gohil-Desai
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First published by Solicitors Journal on 12 September 2022. On 6 April 2022, divorce law in England and Wales changed for the first time in 50 years with the introduction of “no-fault divorce”. This long-awaited change has been enacted...

Mining on the moon

Catherine Campbell
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First published by Today’s Family Lawyer on 8 th September Mining on the moon: The Luna-cy of crypto costs in matrimonial financial proceedings The pandemic-driven explosion of interest in crypto currencies has led the family courts in...

Leora Taratula-Lyons - promoted to Associate

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Burgess Mee is pleased to announce Leora Taratula-Lyons' promotion to Associate. Leora joined Burgess Mee in November 2020 and advises on a wide range of family law issues, including divorce and private children law cases - High net worth...

In/Fertility in the City: Part 2

Jacqueline  Marcus
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On 7 July 2022, Burgess Mee’s own Natalie Sutherland and CEO and Founder of Mimoza Fleur, Somaya Ouazzani, hosted In/Fertility in the City: Part 2 to a packed room of 120 people in Stephenson Harwood’s offices in London. This followed an...

Proposed Change to Tax Regime for Separating Couples

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The Government has proposed a change of rules applying to the transfer of assets between spouses and civil partners who are separating. The proposed changes ensure fairer tax rules that give spouses more time to transfer assets between one another without...

National Surrogacy Week Blog Series - blog 3

Natalie  Sutherland
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X v Z (Parental Order Adult) [2022] EWFC 26 In our third and final blog in the National Surrogacy Week ( https://surrogacyweek.co.uk/ ) series, we look at the first ever Parental Order that was made in respect of a surrogate born child who is now an...

National Surrogacy Week Blog Series - blog 2

Natalie  Sutherland
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H v United Kingdom In our second blog in the National Surrogacy Week ( https://surrogacyweek.co.uk/ ) series, we look at a European Court of Human Rights case which involved a young girl born through surrogacy. She took the UK Government to Strasbourg...

National Surrogacy Week Blog Series - blog 1

Natalie  Sutherland
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Jennings v Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority [2022] EWHC 1619 (Fam) National Surrogacy Week https://surrogacyweek.co.uk/ runs from 1 to 7 August 2022. Throughout the week we will be publishing a series of blogs highlighting recently reported...

Burgess Mee ranked in Chambers HNW

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The firm is thrilled to have been ranked in Band 3 for Family/Matrimonial: High Net Worth in Chambers and Partners HNW 2022. Chambers and Partners have 200 researchers who conduct research across 200 jurisdictions, interviewing thousands of people,...

Best Boutique Family Law Firm - eprivateclient Excellence Awards

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Burgess Mee named Best Boutique Family Law Firm at eprivateclient Excellence Awards Burgess Mee is delighted to have been named Best Boutique Family Law Firm at the eprivateclient Excellence Awards last night at a black tie gathering at The Langham Hotel...

Pride: LGBTQ Estate Planning

Emily Robertson
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Pride was a riot – a fact that often seems to be forgotten during this month’s sea of rainbow flags and merchandise. Pride month is celebrated on the anniversary of The Stonewall Riots. They were largely started by transgender women of colour at...

Something has changed... so can I change my financial order?

Suzanna Brown
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Whilst the team at Burgess Mee are regularly contacted to help resolve the financial aspect of a separation, they are also often approached after the event when a court order is in place but one party’s circumstances have changed to an extent that they...

Fertility treatment: Preparing for the worst

Natalie  Sutherland
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First published by Family Law Journal (Legalease) in May 2022. Natalie Sutherland is a partner at Burgess Mee and a trustee of Progress Educational Trust Natalie Sutherland looks at posthumous conception and issues of consent and legal parenthood ...

Peter Burgess and The Cross Check nominated for Resolution Award

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Peter Burgess, partner and co-founder of Burgess Mee Family Law, has been shortlisted for a prestigious Resolution Award which celebrates family professionals who have championed the Resolution Code of Practice and played a part in creating a better family...

Divorce week: Single lawyer advice services

Peter Burgess
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Welcome to the next blog in our series of articles about supporting couples in the week that no-fault divorce changes the family law landscape. There are now quite a few services which offer a “ one lawyer, two clients ” type service. ...

Divorce week: Hybrid Mediation - What is it?

Peter Burgess
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In part three of our look at how best clients can use the new no-fault divorce legislation to try to remove acrimony from the process of separating, this article will talk a little more about ‘hybrid mediation’. Although hybrid mediation...

Divorce week: Happy Co-Parent

Peter Burgess
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In part two of our look at how couples can remove the acrimony from their separation process, we are looking at co-parenting. Around two years ago at Burgess Mee we realised that what was lacking from the information and resources available online was...

Divorce week: No-Fault Divorce: Separation in the 21st Century

Suzanna Brown
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No-fault divorce, arguably the biggest reform to the law governing divorce in England and Wales in over fifty years, comes into force on 6 April when the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 becomes law. The Act received royal assent on 25 June...

Fertility in the Workplace

Natalie  Sutherland
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Rob Hanna , of Legally Speaking Podcast , hosts the miniseries Fertility in the Workplace .  He is joined by Natalie Sutherland of Burgess Mee Family Law and Somaya Ouazzani of Mimoza Fleur in four discussions: How Can Law Firms Do...

Burgess Mee launches The Cross Check

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Burgess Mee launches The Cross Check to offer clients holistic advice on navigating the legal, financial and emotional aspects of relationship breakdown Burgess Mee Family Law today announces the launch of The Cross Check , a comprehensive and...

How to leave a toxic relationship

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First published by Newsweek on 6 March 2022 Peter Burgess is quoted in Newsweek's article 'How to Leave a Toxic Relationship', by Tom Fish.   Peter emphasises on making a plan when deciding to leave a toxic relationship. Click ...

LGBTQ+ History in the UK

Vikkie Chetcuti-Gee
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LGBTQ+ history month takes place in February each year and was initiated in the UK in February 2005 by Schools Out UK (though it was founded in 1994 in Missouri). The intention is to raise awareness of and combat prejudice against LGBTQ+ people and their...

Burgess Mee appoints fertility officer

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It came as a welcomed, yet unexpected surprise, that our appointment of a fertility officer would get a much needed conversation started.  Natalie Sutherland , who has been the driving force behind this initiative, has been contacted by various...

Finances and the breakdown of a relationship

Kirsty Morris
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First published by What Investmen t on 8 February 2022. Relationship break ups need not be hard to do - Kay Ingram advises on finances on finances including pensions, property, and debt. Marriage in England & Wales has declined from 36 per 1,000...

Cohabitation and marriage - new year, new us?

Kirsty Morris
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With the new year comes a renewed focus on aims and objectives for the year ahead. In addition to thinking about holiday plans and home renovation projects, attention can be turned to ‘relationship goals’. One question the Burgess Mee team is...

Firm promotion

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Congratulations to Sarah Bunn who has been promoted to Associate! Sarah joined Burgess Mee in February this year.  Sarah has worked very hard since she joined us and the promotion is thoroughly deserved.  To read more about Sarah, visit her...

It's Christmas, all over... again

David Lillywhite
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We are approaching the time of the year when parents should be considering and trying to agree the arrangements for their children over the Christmas holidays. December can be stressful at the best of times, especially with the ever-present pressure to have...

Ukrainian Surrogacy journey for UK intended parents

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Please join a discussion about the Ukrainian Surrogacy journey for UK intended parents with Natalie Sutherland , family solicitor and Partner of Burgess Mee Family Law , Louise Riding, Co-Founder of Ukrainian Surrogacy Agency Nest and Co , Alexander...

Burgess Mee ranked in leading UK legal directories

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Burgess Mee Family Law is pleased to have been ranked once again as a leading law firm in the 2022 edition of Chambers UK , which was published today. The firm is recommended for family/matrimonial law, while Burgess Mee partners and co-founders, Peter...

Reform of UK fertility laws - ripe for change

Natalie  Sutherland
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First published by Today's Family Lawyer  on 7 October 2021  -  Reform of UK fertility laws – ripe for change On 6th September, the Government announced an overhaul of the UK’s fertility laws, with plans to extend the...

The importance of language and inclusivity to LGBT parents

Natalie  Sutherland
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The ‘traditional’ family unit consists of a mother and a father, who are respectively female and male, and that heterosexual gender-conforming couple bringing a child into the world will likely do so without ever thinking that ‘the...

Cohabitation in 2021 - Information for the Modern Family

David Lillywhite
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Cohabiting couples are the fastest growing family type according to official figures. . Apparently the number of cohabiting couples has more than doubled between 1996 and 2016 (from 1.5 million to 3.3 million), representing 1 in 5 families who share this...

LPAs, Capacity And Silver Splitters - The Practitioner's Perspective

Leora Taratula-Lyons
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First published by WealthBriefing on 16 August 2021 -  August Big Read: LPAs, Capacity And Silver Splitters – The Practitioner’s Perspective Written by Peter Burgess and Leora Taratula-Lyons In July the UK government announced...

Surrogacy & Donor Conception

Natalie  Sutherland
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Surrogacy & Donor Conception - w/ Natalie Sutherland, Mr Divorce Coach & Fay Petcher - The Divorce Coaching Podcast Ep19.  First published by Divorce Coaching Podcast on 2 August 2021. Partner at Burgess Mee, Natalie Sutherland, joined Tom...

Introduction to Surrogacy

Natalie  Sutherland
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Introduction to Surrogacy, first published by Family Law Week and hosted by Rachel Cooper of Coram Chambers , gives and introduction to surrogacy law in England and Wales and looks at some interesting cases in the family court.  Rachel is...

Court is not the only option

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A Short Guide to Alternative Dispute Resolution Two of the most common concerns clients express at the initial meeting with our solicitors are the potential legal costs which will be incurred and the time and energy required to resolve their situation....

Considering donor conception? Consider taking legal advice - part 2

Natalie  Sutherland
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Part 2: When things go wrong. In Part 1 of this blog series, I looked at why you should obtain legal advice before conceiving using donor gametes and how that affects legal parenthood. In Part 2 I will consider what happens if you discover after...

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