Expertise
Biography
Background and Expertise
Caroline qualified as a solicitor in 1999 and has been practising law for over 24 years.
Having joined Butcher & Barlow LLP in 2009 as a solicitor, Caroline was promoted to Partner level within 2 years, before becoming Managing Partner of their Nantwich office. She also achieved panel membership of the Law Society Family Law Panel (advanced), and has trained to become a mediator and has achieved panel membership on the Law Society Family Mediation Panel.
Caroline specialises in work that involves complex high asset financial cases, acting for husbands, wives, cohabitees and civil partners.
Having worked with farming families across Cheshire, Caroline is developing a growing reputation within the rural economy sector, and is rapidly becoming a leading specialist in this area.
Farming disputes are a notoriously difficult area of family law that require inventive solutions. Caroline’s experience and knowledge allows her to navigate the complexities associated with this type of instruction to achieve workable and practical results and solutions for her clients.
Most of Caroline’s current cases involve an element of a dispute with a third party. There is a considerable overlap in her caseload with TOLATA and the Partnership Act, which means she is experienced in both family and civil procedure, rules and practice directions.
Caroline’s qualities include a fastidious attention to detail and memory retention that allows her to deal with high net worth complex cases in her own right.
Unlike other law practices that require a team of lawyers on most of her cases Caroline can act alone with the assistance of counsel only.
As part of her desire to remain on top of the game to be able to deliver the best service to clients, Caroline goes above and beyond to keep up to speed with developing areas of law and
her continual legal research means that she keeps abreast of new and pending case law and changes.
Specialisations and Personal Achievements
Caroline is a skilled negotiator and her experience as a mediator places her in the optimal position to broker favourable settlements for her clients. Through always having a mind for the unexpected Caroline is able to cover all bases of an instruction even surprising client’s with possible scenarios which they have not planned for.
Professional relationships are important to Caroline who works on the basis that you should always treat others as you would like them to treat you. This has led to many long standing affiliations and associations where Caroline has built links between Butcher & Barlow and financial advisors, pension actuaries, surveyors, process servers, agricultural specialists, barristers, mediation services, contact centres and local authorities.
Caroline has a specialism in difficult and complex financial cases including many farming cases which inevitably involve partnership issues as well as third party interests. A lot of the cases Caroline deals with progress through the money lists in Manchester and Liverpool family courts.
Some of the cases involve the juxtaposition between family and chancery law, involving both the family and chancery courts. Caroline also deals with many cases which involve cross jurisdiction issues and complex business and pension disputes.
Irrespective of the level of assets involved in a case Caroline affords the same attention to each individual case in acknowledgement of the importance that the issues hold to each client whether that involves working to retain a family home for the homemaker and primary carer of the children through to saving a family business that at risk of being dissolved through the process of divorce.
Recent Work Examples
- Case involving a matrimonial farming dispute where the extent of the farming partnership assets and the matrimonial assets is in dispute between the parties.
- Advised on a farming matrimonial dispute which involved allegations against her client that he had dissolved the farming partnership with his brothers prior to separation in order to prevent the Wife from being able to make claims against the partnership assets. The Wife claimed the partnership dissolution was a sham and sought to have the same set aside within the proceedings. The case involved 6 different parties, husband, wife and 4 interveners.
- Advised on a case where the husband was Bulgarian and the Wife asserted that he was holding the proceeds of sale from an apartment they owned in Bulgaria to prevent her from being able to make claims against the money. The case involved the Husband’s Bulgarian mother providing evidence to rebut the Wife’s allegations. The Wife’s claims were dismissed by the court.
- Advised on a case involving the ex-commissioner of a Northwest police force whose occupational pension had accrued above the personal lifetime allowance levels. This had gone undetected until the divorce occurred and pension issues were raised therein. Through the instruction of a financial pension tax specialist and a pension actuary it was possible to preserve the whole of the pension fund for distribution in the divorce.