The Family Practice

13 King’s Bench Walk is an established set of chambers. We have some 50 members, with premises in the Inner Temple in London, and in Beaumont Street in Oxford. The set is, in current Bar terms, medium sized: large enough to attract and retain high calibre practitioners, but sufficiently small to maintain personal contact with all our clients. This breadth of experience, combined with our specialist expertise and advocacy skills, allow us to provide individuals with the appropriate level of expertise for your needs.

We realise that our performance reflects on the solicitors who instruct us and we aim to take a commercial approach by combining prompt action with practical advice. We believe that the best way to assist busy professionals is to provide a team of Counsel with varying levels of complementary experience in all relevant fields, to enable you to work closely with a small number of individuals who understand your needs. This enables you to select the right person for your particular case and helps us to provide you with an efficient value for money service.

Our Chambers can provide a number of practitioners with complementary experience to support you, in Oxford and London.

We have experienced practitioners in the following areas:

(a)  Adoption
(b)  Ancillary relief and financial disputes between co-habitees
(c)  Inheritance Act claims
(d)  Public and Private Law Children cases
(e)  Applications under Part IV Family Law Act 1996

A number of our more recent recruits have had previous relevant experience in other fields before embarking on a second career at the bar and are therefore able to bring an additional dimension to their advice.

We are happy to advise at short notice on all family matters in both the Midland and South Eastern Circuits.

Our team comprises the following Counsel, whose more detailed Curricula Vitae can be provided on request:

  • Andrew Pote (1983) has a busy practice dealing with all aspects of family law both private and public funded work including areas of ancillary relief and children law (private and public), recent cases have included Re P (Adoption: Leave Provisions) [2007] EWCA Civ 616
  • Mark Maitland-Jones (1986) has very extensive experience in ancillary relief and shared ownership disputes. He is also an experienced advocate in both public and private law  proceedings involving children.
  • Richard Owen-Thomas (2000) undertakes private and public law children work, ancillary relief and Family Law Act applications. Accepts work under the Family Graduated Fee system.
  • Anne Dillon (2003) has a practice in not only children proceedings and applications for injunctions and committals under Part IV of the Family Law Act 1996, but also in all aspects of ancillary relief, representing parents and grandparents.  Anne has also qualified as a Family Mediator

Some of our Counsel may be well known to you and we do understand the importance of the selection of the right individual, both for you and your client. If you have any queries, we would urge you to discuss brief details of your case with our family clerk, Stuart Ritchie (sritchie@13kbw.co.uk), who is very experienced in this field.

We aim to provide excellent service to all our clients, and you can be sure that, should you instruct one of our more junior members, you will still get the benefit of the expertise of other senior members who are always happy to discuss matters with their colleagues.

Our Chambers' policy is to carry out our daily business without direct or indirect discrimination on grounds of race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, religion or political persuasion.

THE FAMILY PRACTICE TEAM

Practice Leader: Andrew Pote 1983

Some of our Counsel may be well known to you and we do understand the importance of the selection of the right individual, both for you and your client. If you have any queries, we would urge you to discuss brief details of your case with our family clerk, Stuart Ritchie, who is very experienced in this field.

We aim to provide excellent service to all our clients, and you can be sure that, should you instruct one of our more junior members, you will still get the benefit of the expertise of other senior members who are always happy to discuss matters with their colleagues.