Family law

Family Law

Areas
  • Divorce and Separation
  • De-Facto Relationships
  • Parenting Issues
  • Child Support
  • Property Settlements and Superannuation
  • Binding Financial Agreements (including pre-nuptial agreements)
  • Spousal Maintenance
  • Domestic Violence & AVOs

Our Team
Our family law team is committed to assisting you in your family situation. Our experienced and understanding staff tailor their approach to your needs and make you feel comfortable during one of the most emotionally difficult times in your life. Our family law team understands that your needs and circumstances will be unique and involve you in each step of the process to work with you to achieve the right and most reasonable outcome. The majority of our matters are resolved quickly and amicably often achieving practical and commercial solutions, saving you the emotional and financial cost of litigation.

Our network of Barristers and family law professionals help us to guide you through all types of family issues.

Family Law Process
There are three main stages in resolving family law situations:

  1. Attempts to prevent Court Proceedings
  2. Commencing Court proceedings and settling before a hearing
  3. Determination by the Court at a hearing

1. Attempts to prevent Court Proceedings
We strongly recommend that before any documents are filed with the Family Court that you both attempt to reconcile or settle issues regarding your family law dispute, whether it relate to property and/or children.

This can be done by using community education sessions, relationship / separation counselling & mediation or solicitors.

We recommend making every effort to either reconcile or resolve your matter before proceeding to Court. If you come to an agreement, it should still be formalised and registered with the court.

2. Commencing Court proceedings and settling before a hearing
Once family law proceedings are commenced, the Court will provide you with a further opportunity to negotiate and try to settle your matter. This event is called a Conciliation Conference.

Conciliation Conferences bring you both together to discuss the issues in dispute and to assist you in your attempt to reach some common ground. They can be lengthy and go into detail about the value of the property and proposed parenting arrangements. If you can both reach an agreement at the Conference, you are able to formalise that agreement by Consent Orders.

If you are not able to resolve your dispute, then the matter will proceed to a hearing for the Judge to determine the result.

A Court will not list the matter for a hearing until all options for resolution have been considered. The majority of cases do settle.

3. Determination by the Court
There is a lot of work required to prepare for Hearing. You and all other parties and witnesses involved will be required to prepare affidavits (Court Statements of evidence) need to be prepared and you will need to to submit your updated financial information to the Court.

There are several steps in preparing for a hearing and you will be required to attend court for one (or more if required) pre-trial conferences for the Court to determine whether or not your matter is ready to proceed to a Hearing.

The Hearing takes place before the Judge. You will put your case forward, and be cross-examined (as will all other parties). The Judge will often then go away to consider all of the evidence and hand down their judgment several weeks later. When dealing with your family breakdown, we recommend that you:

  • Take a practical approach: Seek counselling and assistance to help you work through the emotional issues. We recommend focusing on the practical steps towards closure.

  • Create a "paper trail": Disputes can go on for many months. It is important to record important incidents as you and your witnesses will need to refer to them later in your Affidavits (Court Statements of evidence).

  • Be prepared to make concessions: Figure out what really matters to you. Maintain your position on only those important issues and concede areas that don’t matter to you so much.

  • Have a support person/witness present: Always bring a support person along to meetings with your partner. That person can then provide a statement and give evidence in relation to any issues that are disputed.

  • Seek professional advice: Often it is worthwhile seeking more than just legal assistance. Consult a psychologist to assist you to work through the issues associated with a family break down or a financial planner to work out your finances. We can assist you with the legal process and with negotiating a settlement. We also have a network of professionals that we can refer you to for help and guidance.