Brabners x Family Law Reform Now network
Wednesday 2 April 2025 — 10:30am — 5:00pm
This is your chance to hear from and network with leading voices in family law practice and academia as they tackle the biggest questions facing the future of our field.
The event is hosted by Brabners in association with the Family Law Reform Now network and in celebration of the launch of their book: Family Law Reform Now: Proposals and Critique.
What’s in store?
Join us in lively debate as we hear three, interactive panel discussions tackling the fundamental questions for the future of our field.
Our event proudly features leading family law KCs, academics and other key voices in the field as panellists. We’re thrilled to be joined by the Law Commissioner for family law, Professor Nicholas Hopkins. Alongside Professor Hopkins, we’ll hear from the country’s leading voices from the Court room — in Hannah Markham KC and Samantha Hillas KC — and academia — in Dr Jan Ewing, Professor Sharon Thompson and Professor Anne Barlow.
We’ll also hear the direct experiences of those most important to the Family Court system — the children and young people subject to proceedings.
Finally, we’ll hear from LawTech entrepreneurs leading the technological conversation which will ultimately shape the way we work in the future.
There is an immense concentration of intelligence and talent in family law academia and practice. We believe there is untapped potential for positive change with collaboration.
The Family Law Reform Now network intend to bridge the gaps between these disciplines for this purpose.
Your voice is important. You’re invited to join in. Therefore, this event is free to attend.
We’re expecting the event to be oversubscribed. If you sign up and can’t attend, out of courtesy for your colleagues, please cancel your place promptly.
How to register
To register your place, please complete the form to the right of this page.
For any questions, please contact events@brabners.com.
Scroll down for the agenda and full list of speakers.
Register your details below:
This is a joint event between Brabners and Family Law Reform Now Network. By signing up to this event, you consent to your name, organisation and email address being shared with both parties for the purpose of this event.
Agenda: Wednesday 2 April 2025
- 10:30am — Introduction
Professor Nicholas Hopkins, the Law Commissioner for family law - 10:35am to 12pm — Children law reform — are we getting it right for children?
Hannah Markham KC, 36 Family
CAFCASS’ Family Justice Young Peoples Board
Dr Jan Ewing, University of Cambridge - 12pm to 1:15pm — Networking lunch
- 1:15pm to 3:15pm — Financial remedy reform — the future and the Law Commission’s recent report
Sam Hillas KC, St Johns Buildings
Professor Nicholas Hopkins, the Law Commission
Professor Sharon Thompson, University of Cardiff - 3:15pm to 3:45pm — Coffee and comfort break
- 3:45pm to 5:00pm — AI, innovation and technology in family law. What does the future hold for us?
James Evans, OurFamilyWizard
Professor Anne Barlow, University of Exeter - 5:00pm to 7:30pm — Networking drinks
More information and special thanks
Immense gratitude goes to the event’s sponsors, OurFamilyWizard and the Arts and Humanities Research Council via University of Birmingham.
For more information about the Family Law Reform Now book — Family Law Reform Now: Proposals and Critique: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/family-law-reform-now-9781509962198/
For more information about the Family Law Reform Now network: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/projects/family-law-reform-now
Speakers
Details of our speakers can be found below:
Hannah Markham KC
Hannah is a formidable silk renowned for her role in leading and appellate cases, often those which tackle groundbreaking areas of law.
Since taking silk, Hannah has balanced complex private law cases, international children law cases and appellate work with the most serious of public law (care) cases.
Private law cases involve those with the most serious of issues — domestic abuse, alienation and emotional abuse, physical abuse including sexual and those with international and complicated relocation (both internal and external) arguments.
Known for her work in cases involving serious allegations of sexual abuse, physical abuse and emotional harm, she is also highly regarded in her work in medical cases: non accidental injury, shaken baby syndrome and cases involving mental health issues. Hannah’s work also focuses on judicial review issues both within family law cases and as free-standing issues.
Assistant Professor Jan Ewing
Dr Jan Ewing is an Assistant Professor in Law, Fellow of Homerton College and Deputy Director of the Cambridge Family Law Centre at the University of Cambridge.
Working with Professor Emeritus Anne Barlow at the University of Exeter, Jan was a Research Associate and then Fellow on projects investigating the experiences of parents and their children following parental separation, including Mapping Paths to Family Justice, Creating Paths to Family Justice and more recently the Healthy Relationship Transitions (‘HeaRT’) project on child-inclusive mediation.
She is a Member of the Family Solutions Group set up by Sir Stephen Cobb in 2020, which was tasked with considering what can be done to improve the experience of children and families before an application is made to the Family Court.
Jan was a family law Solicitor, including at partnership level, in a career spanning 20 years. She was a Family Law Panel and Children Panel member and a trained mediator when in private practice.
Professor Sharon Thompson
Sharon Thompson is Professor of Law at Cardiff University. Her research specialises in adult relationships, with particular focus on power, inequality and the gender of money. She has published widely on family law and feminist legal history, including two monographs: Prenuptial Agreements and the Presumption of Free Choice (Bloomsbury 2015) and Quiet Revolutionaries (Bloomsbury 2022). Sharon is recipient of the SLSA Legal Theory and History Prize, the SLS Peter Birks Second Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship, the Learned Society of Wales’s Dillwyn Medal for Humanities and the Creative Arts and the Philip Leverhulme Prize.
James Evans
James Evans is the Head of UK Professional Education at OurFamilyWizard. Having previously worked as a teacher, James joined the Family Law community over six years ago to introduce Family Law Practitioners around the country to OurFamilyWizard. James has been shortlisted for over 10 awards for his contribution to Innovation and Championing of supporting separated families and was the winner of the Working in Collaboration Award at Resolutions 2023 Family Law Awards and Innovation in Family Law at the 2023 Family Law Awards.
The Family Justice Young People’s Board (FJYPB)
The Family Justice Young People’s Board (FJYPB). We are a group of over 40 children and young people aged between seven and 25 years old who live across England and Wales. All of our members have either had direct experience of the family justice system or have an interest in children’s rights and the family courts.
Our overall aim is to support the work of the Family Justice Board to deliver improvements to the family justice system so that it provides the best experience and outcomes for children who come into contact with it. We work hard to help ensure that the work of the Family Justice Board is child-centred and child-inclusive. We do this by participating in all its meetings to enable young people to have a direct say in its work. In doing this we work closely with other young people’s groups and stakeholders within family justice.
Samantha Hillas KC
Samantha Hillas KC is a senior member of St John’s Buildings’ matrimonial finance team, dealing exclusively with financial remedy work. Commended by Chambers UK Bar and Legal 500, Samantha specialises in high net worth and complex cases.
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Professor Nick Hopkins
Professor Nick Hopkins is Law Commissioner for England and Wales for Property, Family and Trust Law. He was appointed Commissioner in 2015 and reappointed for a second term in 2020. He has led a number of family law projects at the Commission, including its reports on weddings, surrogacy (a joint report with the Scottish Law Commission) and its scoping report on financial remedies on divorce and dissolution. Prior to appointment, Nick was an academic for over 20 years and he is currently Professor of Law at Reading University. He will leave the Commission at the end of June 2025 to take a Chair at UCL. Nick is an honorary bencher of Middle Temple.
Professor Anne Barlow
Anne Barlow, FAcSS, is Professor Emeritus of Family Law and Policy at the University of Exeter Law School. She has led a number of funded socio-legal research projects on aspects of family law and justice, including Mapping Paths to Family Justice and Creating Paths to Family Justice on non-court dispute resolution and Healthy Relationship Transitions (HeaRT) which focused on the experiences of child-inclusive mediation. She has served as the Academic Member of the Family Justice Council (2011 – 2015) and was a member of the Government’s Task Force on Family Mediation (2014). She has published widely in the field and co-authored Mapping Paths to Family Justice: Resolving Family Disputes in Neo-Liberal Times (Palgrave, 2017) (with Rosemary Hunter, Janet Smithson and Jan Ewing) which was awarded the Hart-SLSA book prize 2018. More recently, with Jan Ewing, she co-authored Children’s Voices, Family Disputes and Child-Inclusive Mediation (BUP, 2024).
Associate Professor Rehana Parveen
Rehana is a former family law Solicitor and currently an Associate Professor at Birmingham Law School. Rehana teaches on wide range of modules including Family Law, Decolonising Legal Concepts, Legal Skills & Methods and Equity & Trusts. Rehana’s research interests are in investigating the developing relationships between English Family Law and Islamic Family Law and how women navigate these interacting frameworks including their use of sharia councils. More recently, Rehana has been exploring how legal concepts and structures may be decolonised to place them within their social, historical, political and postcolonial context.
Associate Professor Charlotte Bendall
Dr Charlotte Bendall is an Associate Professor in Law at Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham. Her research to date has focused on a range of Family Law related topics, including same-sex relationship breakdown and couple finances. She is currently working on projects concerning the position of grandparents in the event of family fragmentation and the accessibility of shared parental leave provisions for 'working class' families. Together with Dr. Rehana Parveen, she edited Family Law Reform Now: Proposals and Critique. She is also the co-author of a forthcoming Family Law textbook (with Brian Sloan and Andy Hayward), to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2026.
