Family Law

When faced with divorce or disputes about children or the ending of a Civil Partnership it is important that you have experienced solicitors to advise you. Bernard McKenna is a member of the Law Society Family Law Panel of Specialist Solicitors and the practice holds a Legal Services Commission Franchise (Legal Aid) in the area of Family Law. Karen Missenden, Amanda Neill and Sinead Harold are well-known and respected Family Solicitors with a keen interest in Child Law including Care work.

We recognise that seeing a solicitor often comes at a difficult and stressful time in our clients' lives. We aim to provide high quality legal advice combined with value for money, and believe our rates are very competitive.

Our family department has 4 solicitors. We have wide experience of all aspects of family law, and provide expert advice and representation in the following areas:

• Divorce/Dissolution of Civil Partnership and relationship breakdown
• Financial settlement and child support
• Contact and residence for children
• Care proceedings and other social services involvement
• Domestic violence and injunctions
• Child abduction

We recognise that family breakdown and children cases can be distressing to all involved, and we take a sympathetic approach to resolving your problems. Our aim is to provide excellent independent advice, to get the best results for you. In urgent cases, we can act immediately to secure injunctions and safeguard your rights. We offer a 24 hour emergency service on 07763 195868.

Diagnostic Interview

We offer an initial diagnostic interview for a fixed fee. At this meeting we will:

• Identify and understand your legal problem
• Identify possible solutions and strategy
• Give you an estimate of cost and timescale to resolve your problem

Some clients use it as an opportunity to simply get a second opinion from an expert. Sometimes people proceed to deal with the case themselves on the basis of advice in the diagnostic interview and incur no further legal costs. Others instruct us to do further work and we agree fees with them.

We have very competitive private rates and for certain cases we can also offer Legal Aid funding, subject to eligibility.