Sir Andrew McFarlane

Sir Andrew McFarlane is a British judge. He was called to the Bar in 1977 and practiced in chambers in Birmingham until 1993 when he moved to specialist family law chambers in London. He was a Lord Justice of Appeal in England and Wales from 2011 to 2018, and became President of the Family Division in July 2018. Sir Andrew has been a supporter of Support Through Court for over 10 years and is a regular speaker at our events.

HHJ Edward Hess

Edward Hess practised at the Bar from Harcourt Chambers for 25 years, becoming a Recorder in 2009, a District Judge at the Principal Registry of the Family Division (later the Central Family Court [CFC]) in 2010, a Circuit Judge in 2015 and a Deputy High Court Judge in 2016. He became the Designated Family Judge in Wiltshire in 2018. He has been a nominated judge of the Court of Protection since 2017.

Sarah Higgins

Sarah handles all areas of family law with a particular focus on financial applications, children, cohabitation and marital agreements. Sarah advises those involved in disputes concerning their financial arrangements following relationship breakdown, whether as spouses/cohabitants or third parties such as trustees. She drafts and advises on both marital and civil partnership agreements while her work with children includes acting in cases where one parent wishes to relocate to a different country with a child. She is a trained mediator and a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers.

Jennifer Lee

Jennifer Lee is a family law barrister with a thriving practice in financial remedies. She has successfully represented high-net-worth clients in cases involving family businesses, inherited wealth, substantial pensions, nuptial agreements and trusts. Some of her cases involve tax complications, and many have an international element. Jennifer was appointed a fee-paid Judge of the Tax Chamber (FTT) in 2021. She has appeared in a number of reported family cases, and regularly writes and presents seminars on topical family law matters.

Simao Paxi-Cato

Simao’s private family law practice has a particular focus on financial disputes following divorce or separation between both married and unmarried couples. He is regularly instructed to advise and represent clients in trusts of land cohabitation disputes under TOLATA applications and at mediation. His practice also covers non-molestation orders and child arrangement disputes. He is an experienced advocate who appears for both applicants and respondents in cases with an alleged domestic abuse background.

Susan Reyes

Susan manages our service office based in the Central London Family Court (CFC). Our highly trained volunteers offer a frontline 5 days a week service to clients representing themselves in Civil and Family Court. Since 2006, we have equipped our CFC clients with the information and procedural guidance they need. Our 22 volunteers strive to do all they can for our clients; their work last year equated to 2.3 full time staff and provided an in-kind contribution of over £48,000.
We are proud to have supported in nearly 1,700 and 310 cases relating to children and domestic abuse respectively in 2021/22.