Looking to the future

We have a team of in-house divorce consultants and relationship therapists with a wealth of experience in helping individuals and couples to improve their relationships, whether they are together, separating or separated. They offer a place to reflect on relationship issues in a confidential and stigma-free way.

Divorce and separation is notoriously difficult to navigate emotionally. That’s why we have specialist divorce consultants and relationship therapists who are highly experienced and clinically trained to support you before, during and after separation.

An amicable divorce might not always be possible, but an amicable outcome is achievable. This is so important where children are concerned as some kind of ongoing relationship will be needed to manage the practicalities. There is also the prospect of family events, birthdays, celebrations to consider well into the future.

Learn more about the support that our expert divorce consultants and relationship therapists can provide here.

Our Divorce Diaries are a collection of the real life advice and experiences of divorce contributed by some of our former clients. The names used in the divorce diaries are fictitious but the divorce stories they tell are entirely real.

We are enormously grateful to everyone who has contributed their divorce diary for sharing their insight and experience in the hope of helping others. We sincerely hope that you are able to benefit from them.

Read the Divorce Diaries here.

Over the years we have developed contacts with top class specialists both at home and abroad. We call this our trusted adviser network. We can draw on this deep resource of talent to support you with whatever assistance you may need.

Our trusted advisers cover a range of specialisms and include:

• Couple therapists
• Child and adolescent psychotherapists
• Psychiatrists
• Psychologists
• Addiction service specialists
• Specialists in other areas of law
• Financial advisers and planners
• Pensions experts
• Educational specialists
• Property specialists.

If you are a client and you would like to discuss whether one of our trusted advisers might be able to help you, please speak to your FLiP lawyer.

We organise events and host talks designed with our clients in mind. They also ensure that our team is working at the cutting edge of good practice when it comes to families. These events and talks are free of charge for our clients.

Our talks cover a range of issues affecting families today. Topics have included teenage mental health; the conflict between work and family life; and the impact of divorce on the wider family.

Our lawyers have spoken to schools about how to manage child arrangement orders and have recorded podcasts covering everything from divorce and its impact on depression to managing the return of children to school at the end of the Covid-19 lockdown.

When parents separate, it is more important than ever to work together as you care for your children. We know that co-parenting can be hard, particularly when you are separating. That’s why we offer our Parenting After Parting course, which has been specially designed for our clients, to help you through the challenges you may face.

Our Parenting After Parting course focuses on helping you to help your children through divorce and separation. The course covers a range of topics including:

• what to say to children about separation;
• how children can be affected when parents separate;
• how to help children to manage grief and loss constructively; and
• how to establish a parenting relationship with your ex-partner.

Our Parenting After Parting course is an online course with a range of e-learning materials (including videos) supported by a 60-minute bespoke coaching session hosted by Elaine Halligan, a parenting expert and founder of The Parent Practice , on Zoom. The course is priced at £340 per person (including VAT) for the e-learning materials and bespoke coaching session.

Key features of our Parenting After Parting Course include:

A three module online e-learning course with a sixty minute bespoke coaching session with Elaine Halligan.

The course notes and videos are accessible from the time you sign up, so you don’t have to wait.

The Parenting After Parting online course has the advantage of being easily accessible, very flexible and avoids the necessity of travelling or booking childcare.

The course is designed for parents to draw specific attention to the impact of divorce and separation on their children.

Together with the bespoke coaching session, it’s an ideal way to prepare yourselves and the children for the various changes ahead.

Feedback on Parenting After Parting from former clients and further information on the Parenting After Parting course can be found on our dedicated Parenting After Parting page.

If you would like to speak to a member of our team about our Parenting After Parting course, please contact Wendy Hoare at FLiP.

Parenting coordination is a form of dispute resolution intended to support parents who have become caught up in high conflict to implement final child arrangements orders or parenting agreements.

The role of the parenting coordinator is primarily to help the parents to find ways to work together to make parenting decisions and to understand the impact on their children of the levels of conflict which have arisen to date. Thereafter, the parenting coordinator helps to reduce the child’s exposure to this conflict by assisting the parents to resolve any disputes that do arise quickly and efficiently, without any further recourse to the Courts.

At FLiP we have trained parenting coordinators who can support you as you move into a new relationship with your former partner following divorce or separation. Please contact Wendy Hoare of FLiP for further details.

At FLiP we firmly believe that if we look after the wellbeing of our staff that we are better able to help our clients.

As a firm, we have pioneered the role of wellbeing at the heart of the divorce and separation process. When FLiP was established, over 25 years ago, it was the first firm to bring together family lawyers with mediators and in-house counsellors to provide clients with a truly holistic approach to their family law issues.

We continue to be recognised as a leader in wellbeing. Our recent initiatives and endorsements include:

In-house Supervision Programme

We have adopted an in-house supervision programme for our professional staff. This involves a psychotherapist attending the office two days a month to discuss issues of concern on an individual basis. By equipping our family lawyers with the tools to combat stress and by giving them time to reflect on the challenges they face in their day to day job, we firmly believe that they are better able to support their clients in a thoughtful way.

Awards

We were delighted to win the Award for Wellbeing at the 2020 LexisNexis Legal Awards. The award recognises the organisation which demonstrated the strongest commitment to promoting a working environment that supports the mental and physical health of its staff and enables them to maintain a healthy balance between their work pressures and home life.

Excellence in Client Service

FLiP was named as a leader for client service by Legal Business in its publication “Client Service Uncovered: The Best Rated Firms” (7th April 2020). Legal Business gathered and complied ratings for more than 1,000 firms from the biggest international names to smaller boutique law firms like Family Law in Partnership. The firms were rated by 60,000 clients across a range of criteria including partner engagement, resourcing, billing and communication. For more information on the analysis carried out by Legal Business and the rankings, click here.

Law Care Champion

FLiP consultant and founder, Gillian Bishop, has been appointed as a Champion by Law Care. Law Care is a charity which offers information, training and emotional support to the legal community in both the United Kingdom and Ireland. Gillian’s appointment provides the opportunity to be involved in the development of wellbeing across the legal profession.

Education, Training & Wellbeing

The education and training of our team is a key element in ensuring that we are able to support our clients with the very best service. Professional skill development is provided by our dedicated Head of Learning and Development, and by our membership of bodies such as the Family Mediators Association and Resolution, the family lawyers association.

Our free publications provide detailed information and guidance on a range of topics related to divorce and separation. You can view our latest publications here and you can download copies of our publications to read at your leisure.

Our Toolkit contains information and links to external websites which our family law specialists thought might be helpful to our clients. Visit our carefully curated Toolkit here.