Nicole Phillips

Nicole is a Senior Associate solicitor and mediator at Family Law in Partnership. She handles all aspects of private family law, assisting and supporting clients who are navigating divorce or separation to resolve any financial or children issues that may arise. Nicole combines a warm, sympathetic manner with tactical nous and incisive judgment. 

Nicole’s cases have involved a wide range of issues, and regardless of the subject matter, one constant feature across all of Nicole’s cases is how much better clients feel for having her at their side, with one remarking: “Your advice and counsel has been nothing short of excellent” and another commenting: “Nicole was the very best I could have hoped for in navigating my divorce. As a lawyer myself, I have very high standards – but I was really impressed. Nicole listened carefully, was soon across all the detail and steered me through the whole process, including some rather tricky financial issues, showing real maturity and emotional intelligence. I would totally recommend Nicole to anyone going through a divorce”.

Nicole is both a qualified collaborative lawyer and a family mediator. She is a strong proponent of what mediation can offer clients, namely a humane, swift and cost-effective means of resolving family disputes by reducing conflict. Nicole is available to conduct mediations either online or in person, for both children and financial issues.

Over recent years Nicole has been named as a Rising Star by the highly regarded directory, Legal 500 UK for both family law and family mediation. The 2024 edition notes: “Nicole Phillips is client focused and has an empathetic demeanour, but she is also incisive and analytical when it counts.” Earlier editions comment: “Nicole Phillips is a real rising star. Nicole is commercially savvy and completely at home with complex business cases. She reads accounts and can manage the most complicated figures with aplomb. Don’t be misled by her youth and charm: she knows what she is doing”.

Nicole has been shortlisted for the award Family Law Solicitor of the Year in the prestigious LexisNexis Family Law Awards 2023. The 2023 and 2024 editions of the UK Best Lawyers guide have also named Nicole as ‘One to Watch’.

Nicole has a strong interest in alternative dispute resolution and in working closely with other professionals such as family consultants and therapists to achieve a successful outcome for her clients. Her interest in holistic support is just one reason why she was elected to Resolution’s Innovation Committee (a national organisation of family lawyers with over 6,000 members), developing tools and business methods to benefit the whole membership and, by extension, the family law industry as a whole.

Nicole is a member of the influential FSG Language Group which has led the “Language Matters” campaign to improve the language used for separating families. The campaign has received considerable interest across Government, the family law community and the media.

Nicole provides legal support and guidance to clients on a variety of issues flowing from separation and divorce. Some recent examples include:

• Advising a client on financial remedy proceedings where the assets included cryptocurrencies. This was one of the first cases of its kind to secure a worldwide freezing order (including a US mirror order) over the crypto assets;
• Advising a parent who has a child with additional educational needs in collaboration with a child and family psychotherapist;
• Representing an unmarried client who had recently separated to secure the client a family home for themselves and their children;
• Drafting a prenuptial agreement for a client looking to preserve their inherited wealth in the event of a potential future divorce;
• Advising an entrepreneur and business owner through the divorce process and helping them to resolve the financial aspects of their divorce;
• Representing a French client seeking to relocate to France with their children;
• Advising a client wishing to dissolve their civil partnership and providing legal advice and guidance on the financial consequences flowing from this; and
• Advising and providing legal guidance to clients engaged in mediation on financial and children issues.

Alongside her membership of Resolution’s Innovation Committee, Nicole is also a member of the influential FSG Language Group which has led the “Language Matters” campaign to improve the language used for separating families.

Nicole has presented and published articles across a wide range of family law topics, including on post-nuptial agreements and Part III of the Matrimonial & Family Proceedings Act 1984. She was quoted extensively in Citywealth Weekly (May 2018) in an article titled Family: Transgender & the Law. Nicole has also written for Tatler where she discussed why the language of divorce matters. The article can be found here. 

Nicole studied law at the University of Cambridge where she was awarded both the AW Woolf Prize and The Vincent and Brigid Keown Memorial Prize. She went on to achieve a distinction in the LPC and joined Family Law in Partnership in 2018, having trained at Collyer Bristow LLP and qualified into their family team in September 2016. 

In her spare time Nicole volunteers for Rights of Women providing advice on their Family Law Advice Line.