Charlotte is a solicitor, collaborative practitioner and mediator. She advises on a wide range of family matters including:

• financial issues arising from divorce or the separation of cohabiting couples, often involving complex issues surrounding businesses, tax, pensions and investments
• pre and post nuptial agreements
• cohabitation agreements
• financial claims by parents for children
• parenting issues involving child contact and residence; and
• relocation of a child both within and outside the jurisdiction.

Many of Charlotte’s matters have an international element. Charlotte speaks fluent French and she has the expertise and experience to conduct client meetings in French. Charlotte also has a corporate law background having previously worked for a City firm before moving into family law.

Charlotte is recommended in both The Legal 500 UK 2021 and 2020 for her family law expertise, with the 2020 edition noting that: “Charlotte Symes is a rising star associate with mastery of the detail of her cases‘. She was also named as a Rising Star in The Spear’s 500 2019 Index of leading family lawyers. 

Charlotte is a member of Resolution, the Family Mediation Council and the Franco-British Lawyers Society. She is a graduate of St John’s College, Cambridge, and she has an MA in French and German.

Charlotte’s recent matters include:

• Advising a Moroccan client in French on an English pre-nuptial agreement involving assets in Morocco, Italy and England
• Advising the owner of a tech start-up company through financial court proceedings on divorce with issues surrounding the valuation of the business
• Advising a heterosexual French couple with a PACS
• Negotiating a successful outcome for a client in heavily contested court proceedings surrounding the beneficial ownership of a property of a non-married couple
• Acting for clients with investments in film partnership schemes that are the subject of litigation against HMRC, requiring complex financial orders to deal with potential tax liabilities and penalties
• Representing clients through arbitration to achieve a legally binding decision outside the court process.

Charlotte’s reported cases include advising the wife in the case of AB v FC [2016] EWHC 3285 concerning financial provision following a short marriage in circumstances where there was little capital but the husband, a professional footballer, had a substantial earning capacity.