Gavin Smith Email & Phone Number

I have three decades’ experience as a specialist family law barrister, dealing with all types of financial remedy proceedings following relationship breakdown. I now focus full time on my established practice as a financial remedy arbitrator and private FDR evaluator. According to Chambers and Partners 2024:"Gavin Smith attracts praise for the extent of his experience in ADR. He concentrates his practice on private FDRs and arbitrations involving properties, pensions and family loans."He will proactively help you case manage collectively rather than making one party feel pitted against the other. Someone who makes the process accessible and always seeks to assist, he's very good at getting involved from day one, putting forward suggestions to make the most of the time available. When it's all finished he takes the time to speak with clients and explain his indication to them at a personal level - clients come away from an arbitration with him feeling that whatever happens they've had the best chance possible to have a sensible outcome. He's very attuned to how emotional these proceedings can be and he'll do his best to put everyone at ease." "Because he's experienced at running arbitrations, he's got more of a relaxed approach which goes down well. He does an awful lot of preparation beforehand and comes up with his own ideas and solutions, which is good when you're dealing with polarised parties." "An extremely detailed, thorough and experienced ADR practitioner."In DB v DLJ [2016] EWHC 324 (Fam) Mr Justice Mostyn described my arbitration award as ‘a thorough, conscientious and clear piece of work. Its quality is a testament to the merit of opting for arbitration.’I am available to undertake arbitrations of all kinds, from single issue disputes to those involving the full range of financial remedy claims, and from high value cases to ones where the parties' resources are modest. I am also an experienced private FDR evaluator, assisting couples on separation by giving them an assessment of the likely outcome in their case, and thus providing them with a basis for a negotiated settlement.I sit as a Deputy District Judge in the Financial Remedies Court on the Midland Circuit, authorised to hear the more complex cases. I keep up to date with legal change by co-editing the financial practitioners’ ‘bibles’, At A Glance and At A Glance Cloud. I am a founding co-author of Financial Remedies Practice, published annually, and co-founded the award-winning website FamilyArbitrator.com. I have an excellent working knowledge of French and some German.

Listed skills include Alternative Dispute Resolution, Family Law, Legal Advice, Prenuptial Agreements, and 11 others.

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  Family Law Barrister, Arbitrator And Private Fdr Evaluator

  1 Hare Court

  Feb 1991 - Present - Temple, London Ec4Y 7Be

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  Downside School. Corpus Christi College, Oxford (Ma)