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james pirrie

Melbourne House, 46 Aldwych, Holborn, London WC2B4LL
London, London WC2B 4LL
United Kingdom
Office Phone: (+44) 20 7420 5000
http://www.flip.co.uk
jp@flip.co.uk
Member since 2004
Membership Type: IACP

Profession(s)

Lawyer

I am committed to finding fair solutions to family issues. I strive to achieve this by caring, by listening, by understanding and by working with vision with clients to help them reach their own resolutions – where possible - together. From my wide experience of different approaches towards dispute resolution, I firmly believe that collaborative law offers the best way forward, for most.

A trained mediator, arbitrator and a Resolution accredited specialist lawyer, I am also a past member of the IACP board and sat for 25 years on the board of Resolution, the 6,000 strong professionals' organisation in England&Wales.
Area(s) of Practice: Collaborative Law, Family Law, Financial, Mediation
License(s): Solicitor (Law Society of England& Wales) ~Collaborative professional (Resolution) ~Arbitrator (Chartered Institute of Arbitrators) ~Mediator (National Family Mediation) ~Child consultation (Resolution) ~Civil & Commercial mediator (ADRgroup)

Professional Activities

Resolution -- former Board member ~Resolution -- CSA committee ~Resolution -- DR committee ~Resolution Parenting after parting committee ~IACP former board member ~Regular contributor on family law topics to national and professional media ~Regularly publish articles in major legal reference works. ~Author/ co-author/ contributor to 1)Safe Routes to Child Support 2)Guide to schedule 1 of the Children Act 3)Emergency procedures, a guide 4)Law Society's ADR handbook 5)Family law Protocol 6) Cohabitation looseleaf (contributor) 7) Encyclopaedia of forms and precs (contributor)

Professional Education

Accredited Mediator
Accredited specialist – (cohabitation and advanced financial provision; currently set the child financial paper)
Financial Planning certificate
CII G10 qualification
Mediator with Direct child consultation qualification (Resolution)
Civil & Commercial mediator (ADR Group)
Arbitrator (Institute of Family Law Arbitrators), qualified in children and money cases

Comments

Unique in the UK and independent of the collaborative movement (no-one here had heard of it then), Family Law in Partnership was established in 1995 to provide a holistic approach, combining counselling and legal skills in its mediation and law-based work. It was only later, in 2003, that we were instrumental in bringing collaborative law to the UK. We saw this as a better way to offer clients the multidisciplinary services from which, we believe, better solutions emerge. It now has a fourteen collaborative professionals (lawyers and coaches) each of whom are also mediators and four of whom are also arbitrators. In 2008, I witnessed the inspirational work of parenting coach, Christina McGhee and started the long haul of integrating her work (which aims to root children at the centre of the decision-making process) into the practice of family law professionals in England. Family Law in Partnership is proud to provide regular workshops based on her work. Whilst I promote the collaborative approach, there are circumstances where outcomes have to be imposed and I have acted in a number of groundbreaking court cases, although increasingly, I see arbitration as providing a better way of resolving the stuck case that needs imposed outcomes and/ or application of legal principle.