Family

Family issues require a particular set of skills and sensitivity to help clients see clearly the choices they face and to understand both what is possible and what is desirable.

With our partner-led service we can advise on all aspects of family law, whether parties are married or cohabiting. This will include the financial implications, procedures to be followed during a separation or divorce and arrangements for the family’s children.

The right tactical advice can be crucial, particularly when dealing with claims of a significant value, or claims with an international element. The need to move quickly can be imperative when determining the jurisdiction in which a divorce and financial claim should be brought. We are also able, if necessary, to protect the family assets from dissipation by swift reference to the court.

Our approach, while always alert to the sensitivities of family relationships, is pragmatic and commercial and we are not afraid to give clear guidance and advice and to protect our client’s interests through court proceedings where necessary.

Issues relating to children are particularly sensitive and they increasingly have an international dimension. We work with clients to secure the best outcome, for the children and for the client. Beyond conventional family matters we also offer advice on:

  • Mediation, both on financial matters and issues relating to children
  • Collaborative law
  • Access to independent family arbitrators

In addition to advising on relationship breakdowns, our team provides advice on forward planning asset protection, including pre and post-nuptial agreements. We are supported by lawyers in other specialist areas who advise on issues including:

  • Private capital – asset management and protection, tax planning and trusts, and international private capital
  • Employment
  • Corporate, particularly with regard to family companies
  • Real estate
  • Tax

Examples of the work we undertake include:

  • Divorce
  • Financial claims on divorce
  • Children’s issues (domestic/international)
  • Separation agreements
  • Cohabitants’ claims
  • Civil partnerships
  • Pre- and post- nuptial agreements
  • Cross-border disputes (forum shopping)
  • Mediation – all issues
  • Collaborative law

Clients range from entrepreneurs, HNW individuals, accountants, medical professionals, investment bankers and financiers, beneficiaries of both offshore and onshore trusts, high profile actors and sportspeople, authors and designers.

For legal updates and news, please visit The Wealth Lawyer blog.

Teresa Cullen

Teresa Cullen

If you have any questions or queries please call Teresa on +44 (0)20 3036 7348 or email tcullen@fladgate.com

‘The team is well organised and communicates well. Teresa Cullen is an extremely experienced solicitor who has a wide ranging knowledge of family law. She is helpful and approachable‘.

Legal 500, 2020

Family team

 

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‘Teresa Cullen is very responsive, excellent in handling high-net-worth family cases and sensitive to the client’s particularities’.

Legal 500, 2020

‘Teresa Cullen and Anna Wakeling work incredibly well together as a team. They are dedicated to giving their clients pragmatic advice and to maintaining a high level of attention to detail to ensure the best possible case is put forward on behalf of their clients‘.

Legal 500, 2020

‘Teresa Cullen is an excellent lawyer, great with clients and has a very commercial and practical approach to dealing with cases. Likewise Anna Wakeling is also of very high calibre‘.

Legal 500, 2020

‘Teresa Cullen is very empathetic, often going the extra mile  for clients without charging for it‘.

Legal 500, 2020

‘The team is well organised and communicates well. Teresa Cullen is an extremely experienced solicitor who has a wide ranging knowledge of family law. She is helpful and approachable‘.

Legal 500, 2020

‘Teresa Cullen is a highly experienced solicitor . She is very knowledgeable, excellent at dealing with clients and always adopts a very practical approach to cases‘.

Legal 500, 2020

‘Teresa Cullen is an excellent litigator who shows great attention to detail‘.

Legal 500, 2020

‘Fladgate has a small but strong family team covering a wide range of issues. Its client care is very impressive‘.

Legal 500, 2020

Teresa Cullen of Fladgate LLP deals with contentious divorce litigation for a high net worth client base, in addition to her mediation practice. Market sources consider her to be “outstandingly good” and to possess a “deep knowledge of legal matters but also the necessary understanding of the client’s particularities”.

Chambers UK

Teresa Cullen is an established family practitioner at Fladgate LLP whose expertise covers both money and private children work. She offers particular experience in divorces involving a cross-border element.

Chambers UK

Fladgate LLP fields ‘a knowledgeable team that adopts a personal approach to meet each client’s needs’, and is experienced in international divorces and high-value financial claims. Teresa Cullen is ‘the driving force in the team’; she has ‘a superb bedside manner with clients but can equally be robust when putting their cases forward’.

Legal 500

Teresa Cullen of Fladgate LLP deals with contentious divorce litigation for a high net worth client base, in addition to her mediation practice. Market sources consider her to be “outstandingly good” and to possess a “deep knowledge of legal matters but also the necessary understanding of the client’s particularities.”

Chambers UK

Teresa Cullen “always does her best for every client” and is particularly recommended for “international cases with complex issues of law and fact”.

Legal 500

Fladgate LLP is singled out for its ‘excellent handling of high-net-worth finance and private children law matters’. Teresa Cullen ‘looks after her clients very well’.

Legal 500

Excellent and client-driven with senior partners leading from the front in the management and delivery of advice.

Chambers UK

Fladgate LLP recently started a family law team, and has brought on board “respected family law practitioner” Teresa Cullen.

Legal 500

  • Cross border – acting in a significant number of cross border pre and post nuptial agreements for high net worth (HNW) individuals.
  • Cohabitation claim – acting in a claim including constructive trusts, promissory estoppel, schedule 1 Children’s Ac and TOLATA claims.
  • Contested five day hearing – acting for the wife in a contested five day hearing in which a freezing order had to be obtained to protect the family assets. The case raised issues of conduct, fraud, forgery, dissipation of assets (in the husband’s case of nearly £1m).
  • International relocation – advising in connection with seeking permission for mother to relocate abroad with her young children.
  • Child abduction – urgent advice and Court application in relation to the abduction to two small children with subsequent application for permission for the mother to permanently relocate with the children.
  • Contested divorce – acting for the wife in a contested divorce all the way to trial.
  • Divorce – acting for two senior partners of a top 5 accountancy firm in connection with their divorces and financial matters.
  • Same-sex marriage and civil partnership – experience in the dissolution of civil partnerships and proceedings relating to same-sex marriages.
  • Foreign embassy – advising on legitimacy claims and in connection with the application of relevant laws, and conflict.
  • Pre and post nups – preparation of pre and post nups, including multi-jurisdictional assets and trust structures in multiple jurisdictions with an asset value in excess of $175million.
  • Children – advice on various child related matters, including Court applications to vary contact and living arrangements as well as dealing with issues of supervised contact, change of name, parental responsibility and DNA disputes.
  • Inheritance Act claim – advising in relation to a heavily contested Inheritance Act claim with competing interests between spouse and step children.
  • Family matters – advising in connection with both financial matters, and issues relating to the children of the family. This was against the background of the husband having concerns about the behaviour of the wife, and also a potential threat that the child might have been abducted by the mother and taken abroad.
  • Divorce – advising on acrimonious proceedings within a divorce, where the parties had shareholdings in six family companies. This required advice in connection with the family proceedings and also company advice, including the appointment of a forensic accountant and valuer.
  • Expert evidence – providing expert evidence to a court in Australia in connection with the mechanics of pension sharing in England and Wales and providing advice on financial provision on divorce under the laws in England and Wales for a divorce case in South Africa.
  • International matters – dealing with a large number of cases with an international element, either where property is abroad, or trusts are often offshore or where one of the parties is a foreign national. Recent matters have involved Irish, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, American and Australian individuals.
  • Agreements – drafting cohabitation agreements, separation agreements and other bespoke agreements to reflect a couple’s intentions on separation/divorce.

Integrated

Our clients come to us to solve problems that are often complex and multifaceted. We draw together the multiple strands of a business or personal challenge into a coherent, integrated legal response that combines the knowledge and experience of experts in all the relevant fields.

Partner-led

We operate in small teams in which partners not only take the lead but also do a significant amount of the detailed work. Clients can be assured that the partners they engage and brief will remain closely involved in developing and delivering the advice as part of our close-knit, expert teams.

Experienced

Fladgate has a long heritage of delivering high-quality legal advice. We have been providing practical legal solutions to businesses and private clients for over 250 years. Today we are one of the UK’s top 100 law firms, with over 80 partners and a reputation for providing solutions that work.