Complex Personal Situations
Complex personal situations and needs can give rise to unforeseen and unwanted legal and practical difficulties when building a family including:
- Relationship issues with an existing or previous partner.
- Uncertainty about legal status of a new partner.
- Lost or impaired fertility (illness, injury, medical negligence).
- Age, social, cultural and religious issues.
- Trans and non-binary gender and identity issues.
- International lifestyle legal and practical issues.
We are supportive and open-minded. We appreciate the importance of handling complex personal issues carefully and sensitively when seeking to create a family. We work closely with you and tailor our legal services to best suit your individual needs and wishes.
Our preeminent legal expertise spans the fertility, medical and family law sectors. We provide bespoke legal solutions and cutting-edge legal advice, operating at the forefront of law and policy in the UK.
Our legal services are flexible and accessible and they help you place family building and future family life on a firm legal basis.
How we can help
Our legal services include:
- Legal packages
- Bespoke legal advice for your situation, needs and wishes
- Preparation of legal documentation
- Legal support and representation in court proceedings
Package One
Complex personal situation legal review
This provides initial bespoke expert advice for those with complex personal issues and needs, who wish to build a family. It
- Provides legal advice on fertility law in the UK.
- Provides legal advice on legal parentage and parental responsibility for a child in the UK.
- Provides legal advice on a child’s upbringing and legal and practical implications arising.
- Identifies legal and practical risks and steps to mitigate these.
- Answers legal and practical questions.
Note:
This consultation does not provide medical advice. It only provides initial specialist advice on fertility and family law in the UK (and not law in other jurisdictions). It does not include preparation of legal documents. Terms and conditions apply. For further legal advice and assistance consider our other legal packages and bespoke legal services.
IF YOU REQUIRE LEGAL ASSISTANCE OR WISH TO DISCUSS YOUR SITUATION PLEASE GET IN TOUCH
+44 (0) 20 7965 8399
Bespoke legal services
We provide further expert tailored legal advice and representation on fertility and family law issues, including evidencing and documenting consent and lack of consent to UK fertility treatment.
Read more about our expert fertility law services:
Family Building Options & Law Fertility Preservation Fertility Treatment Law Donation & Co-parenting Law Surrogacy Law Posthumous Conception Law Assisted Reproduction Dispute
Read more about our expert family law services:
Legal Parentage Parental Responsibility Financial Provision Care & Upbringing Complex Children & Family Law Modern & Blended Family Law Children & Family Dispute
Leading cases
Louisa Ghevaert has dealt with numerous leading and cutting-edge fertility law cases encompassing complex personal circumstances, including:
AB v CD, EF, GH & IL [2018] EWHC 1590 (Fam), representing an intended mother in international contested assisted reproduction and modern family law proceedings in the High Court concerning 2 surrogate born children. This case marks a legal first in the treatment of blended families in the UK following assisted reproduction, divorce, re-marriage, serious allegations of domestic violence and abuse as well as the legal status and identity of two surrogate born children, their biological, intended and social parents and arrangements for the children’s care and upbringing.
In JP v LP & Ors [2014] EWHC 595 (Fam), acting for the intended father in a high profile complex UK surrogacy dispute case following marriage breakdown and divorce. This case established for the first time a legal framework for cases where the legal criteria for a parental order cannot be met, including wardship, and featured in The Telegraph, BBC News and Mail Online (6 March 2014).
You can read more about our well known cases here.
In the News:
Podcast “The Intricacies of Fertility Preservation” interview with Louisa Ghevaert and Eloise Edington of Fertility Help Hub (17 December 2020), also on podcast apps Apple, Spotify and Soundcloud
Apple podcast on Speak From The Body with Avni Touch entitled “Fertility law for modern families with Louisa Ghevaert” (26 February 2020)
“Why we need root and branch law reform” (BioNews 25 November 2019) and longer associated article “Why we need fertility law reform: the paradigm shift” (25 November 2019)
Anything but child’s play: surrogacy and thorny issues of identity, parenthood and status in modern families (Family Law, 29 August 2018)
You can read more here.
