​I'm a lawyer but also a real person, parent, dog owner and I just get it. I get that separating from your partner is tough and trying to sort through the complicated maze of your financial and parenting stuff is difficult and overwhelming. If you're confused by all the free and conflicting legal advice your family and friends are giving you, it's probably time to speak to a family lawyer.

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I've spent 20 years working around the traps in big city law firms where you need a swipe card and a GPS to find your office and smaller boutique ones (where you don't). Family Law has always been my thing and I became an Accredited Family Law Specialist in 2003 because I love exams!  As much as I enjoy the company of other lawyers (and who doesn't?), I finally decided to hang out my own shingle under the banner "Tree House Legal" to provide my clients with a more individualised, empathetic and practical family law approach. I work with my clients to get the best outcome and minimise the stress, hassle, cost and tears as I do it.

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I give sensible and strategic family law advice in a clear, no nonsense fashion without the jargon. Over the years I've helped countless clients navigate their way through difficult and emotional parenting matters, negotiated complex property settlements, drafted a gazillion financial and child support agreements and appeared as advocate for my clients in loads of Court conferences and hearings.  

 

I've often had to actively dissuade my clients from spending ridiculous amounts of money to argue about who should get the good leather couch or the frequent flyer points, and later when cooler heads prevail, they thank me.  But overall, hands down, my best talent is applying my problem solving skills, honed over the years, to come up with out of the box solutions to impossible situations.

 

I'm also a big believer in using alternative dispute resolution, collaboration, mediation, conciliation or pretty well any other available method ending in "tion" to get to the crux of a matter to amicably resolve a dispute, without going to Court (which is really, really stressful and really, really expensive!) Of course sometimes you have no options left but Court action when negotiations stall, or mediation just isn't appropriate because of the circumstances.

 

In my spare time I enjoy standing in the freezing cold watching junior footy, teaching my dogs complex commands and watching "Better Call Saul" on Stan. I have no immediate plans to run a marathon. 

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