Dawson Cornwell ranked as Top Tier Firm by the Legal 500 2025

We are ranked again as Tier 1 for family law. The Legal 500 is one of the two main industry standard directories.

We are described by the Legal 500 as “probably the best specialist family law team in London with an exceptional breadth of talent and skills” handling international matters, high-value financial disputes and public children law issues. We have two highly respected teams: the matrimonial and children departments which are headed by Russell Bywater and Carolina Marín Pedreño, respectively. The Legal 500 marks us out as “a tremendous family law firm with a great range of very impressive individuals (at partner and associate level), with a super team ethic and a real client-focused approach, which is at one and the same time friendly, understanding and highly effective. A firm fully deserving of its tier 1 ranking.”

Four of our partners are listed in the elite “Leading Partner” list: Russell Bywater has particular expertise in international trust matters, the “impossibly clever and hardworking” Simon Bruce who “has a powerful claim to being the best practitioner in Family Law” and Sarah Jane Lenihan who is “committed to achieving the best outcome for her clients either by negotiation or determination.”

Carolina Marin Pedreño “has huge depth of expertise and experience in both international and domestic proceedings involving children. She leads her very able team an dis widely respected by them.”

Additionally our partners Charlotte Conner, Jessica Reid, Anna Shadbolt, Hilka Hollmann, Charlotte Image-Flower and Forum Shah have been named in the “Next Generation Partner” list: trained mediator, Jessica Reid, regularly handles financial cases involving nondisclosure of assets, which is also an area of strength for former commercial litigator Charlotte Conner, Anna Shadbolt who often handles international enforcement matters, Hilka Hollmann who is the “go-to name” for adoption, surrogacy and fertility matters, “public law care specialist of high ability and experience” Charlotte Image-Flower who is “accurate, incisive, and forensic in her approach” and Forum Shah who “is becoming a true legend in her field. Entirely unflappable, she has the nerves of steel that are a prerequisite in abduction cases.”

Five of our lawyers are also “recommended” being Partner Sulema Jahangir, Senior Associates Kate Brett, Aysel Akhundova and Floriane Laruelle and Associate Poppy Holmes.

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