About Us
Just Family law is a bespoke family law practice based in Hampshire offering workable legal solutions to clients and their families.
The Team at Just Family Law
Our family solicitors are:-
The Team at Just Family Law
If you are a parent, husband, wife or cohabitee who would like to be guided and represented by a lawyer with a strong belief that you should be treated with kindness and compassion, then we are here for you. Our practice is focused on understanding your needs and goals, listening to your fears and frustrations and taking timely practical steps to support you. We aim to obtain clear results that meet your needs through a process that will be beneficial for your family, without issues being escalated.
The benefits of working together
Whether you are most concerned about the wellbeing of their children, your housing or future finances, we can hold your hand from the bewildering start to a clear finishing line, overcoming your fears of not being able to cope with the process or manage with the final outcome.
It is important to us that you benefit from a thorough understanding of the legal processes that will best fit your circumstances, emotional and practical needs.
We listen to what concerns you most, what you wish to avoid and what your goals are for a future life in a different family model. We do this through promoting aspects of non- court dispute resolution over court proceedings and keeping you in control of the timing of decision- making and the issues discussed.
We aim to provide you with a result that is manageable for you and your family and bring you to a concluding position where lines can be drawn, and life can move forward.
How we work with you
We are approachable and aim to respond to your emails or calls promptly so you are not feeling unsure and uncertain and without advice. We recognise that you may need more than just legal advice, and so not only do we aim to deliver that advice with empathy, we have an inhouse divorce coach to support you and we offer you time, free of charge, with our client care managers, experienced in family law and with an abundance of family life experience to listen to your concerns and understand what steps you need most.
We aim to provide you with information, advice and support so you are in the best position to make crucial decisions that will impact you and your family now and, in the future, to promote positive family relationships and to be able to continue to keep or provide a home.
Although our emphasis is on out of court dispute resolution, we have decades of experience of representing clients embroiled in high conflict and complex County Court and High Court proceedings. We will vigorously fight your corner when required, whether there is a threat to remove your child to live in another country or a threat to the operation of your family business.
We do not steer you down the most contentious or expensive legal route. Instructing us to represent you will not make matters more conflicted or confrontational. We will have your best interest at heart, legally, practically and emotionally so that you can overcome the obstacles in your separation in a cost-effective, thorough, fair and kind way.
In the short term our clients want to know where they stand. In the medium to long term, they need outcomes and arrangements that protect their assets and their children and this is what we aim to achieve for you be it through solicitor- led negotiation, hybrid mediation or a collaborative process.
You do not each both need to instruct separate lawyers and involving lawyers does not need to be expensive and acrimonious. It may be appropriate to work through your separation together as a couple and not take positional sides against each other, using a One Couple One Lawyer approach.
Our scheme “Just One Family Lawyer” is a tailored process geared to support you both to a achieve a common goal and desired outcome through a structure of individual and joint meetings. We’ve worked with couples with both straightforward and highly complex financial situations using this process, enabling them to retain a common purpose and achieve benefits for the family through continued positive communication and joint advice.
How we have helped clients
You can have confidence in our skill set. Over 30 years we have helped our clients:
- Move abroad or prevent the other parent moving abroad with children and work as a family to find workable solutions in the best interests of their children
- Work together with Just One Family Lawyer to reach an amicable settlement
- Find solutions to all issues they are facing in their separation collaboratively or through hybrid mediation
- Reach financial agreements out of court in Private FDRs
- Reach effective pre- nuptial and post- nuptial agreements
- Protect trust assets and inherited wealth from being shared
- Continue to run their family businesses effectively despite acrimonious disputes and threats from other directors or shareholders
- Retain a family home and to be able to financially manage living in it
- Reduced and increase spousal maintenance orders when circumstances have changed
- Be clear about their retirement positions and financial options going forwards
- Understand their future cash flow forecasting by bringing in financial advisors to assist
- Reach agreements to obtain an outcome of parity of income on retirement
- To manage the separation process more effectively with support from our own divorce coach and trauma specialists
- Be more confident about their future at the end of the process than when we first met
People come to us because they are worried about the future and the lack of certainty of outcomes. They want expert and consider advice We provide this with the wisdom gained through over 30 years’ family law and our own life experiences.
Why we do it this way
In 2010 Just Family Law was established by Jo Houston with a vision that parents, husbands, wives and cohabitees could be supported by a firm that would prioritise the needs of the client. We believe clients deserve an empathetic touch, fair consideration and approachable legal services and wanted to get results for clients using processes that they found helpful and accessible.
We are not a large, multi- discipline firm. We are a small firm of specialists and even our non-legal assistants are highly experienced at working within family law. Our careers have been dedicated to the field and our lives to our families and relationships too and so you will certainly benefit from our human touch, and if there is an aspect we cannot advise on, we will refer to one of our trusted experts.
Our approach is driven by our own experiences, and we would like to give back help in areas where we found personally, it was very difficult to ask for help.
Contact Us
If you are a husband, wife, parent or cohabitees and need our support to overcome challenges and issues in your separation contact our client care manager Sam for more information and an initial free call. Book Online Meeting or call 01962 217640
Joanne Houston
Founder, collaborative lawyer and specialist family solicitor with 30 years’ experience
Jo founded Just Family Law in 2010 and has practised as a specialist family lawyer for over 30 years. A member of Resolution, Jo trained as a collaborative lawyer in 2007 and her practice embraces a collaborative approach. The ethos of the firm is to provide workable legal solutions for clients whilst promoting out of court solutions working if required alongside other professionals. Jo has specific experience in dealing with high-net-worth financial remedy proceedings in the High Court dealing with issues relating to business assets, family trusts, ringfencing assets and international aspects. She has led reported cases on international children law issues and aims to deliver advice with compassion, empathy and understanding whilst retaining a pragmatic approach.
Georgina Suman
Senior specialist family solicitor with 20 years’ experience
Georgina is a specialist family law solicitor with 20 years' experience in advising clients over a broad range of family issues. She deals with a range of cases involving divorce, separation and the financial aspects arising from the breakdown of a relationship and has worked with client’s facing differing circumstances ranging those with relatively modest means to those with complex issues. In addition, she has significant experience in drafting pre- nuptial, post- nuptial and cohabitation and separation agreements.
Georgina has a wealth of experience in dealing with matters concerning children including those with an international aspect. As a member of Resolution, she always aims to resolve issues in a proportionate and constructive manner, always with the client’s best interests in mind.
Sam - Client Care Manager and Divorce and Break Up Coach
Helen - Legal Cashier and Case Management Supervisor
Jen - Administrative Legal Support
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