Ashley Murray

Ashley Murray

Ashley retired from practice at the Bar on 31st March 2025. Ashley is the most experienced specialised divorce and financial remedy junior barrister ...

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Financial Remedy Reform – ‘Fairness’ – Do Divorcing Parties Get Any Say – Time for Some Soul Searching for Family Law Professionals

Financial Remedy Reform – ‘Fairness’ – Do Divorcing Parties Get Any Say – Time for Some Soul Searching for Family Law Professionals

The Law Commission Scoping Report The Law Commission’s 373-page scoping report on Financial Remedies on Divorce and Dissolution, which was published just before Christmas 2024, stated categorically (emboldened emphasis): ‘1.58 In our view, the current law relating to financial remedies on divorce and dissolution does not, to use

The Threat of Adverse Costs Orders in Financial Remedy Cases Has Just Got Higher – Peel J in HO v TL

The Threat of Adverse Costs Orders in Financial Remedy Cases Has Just Got Higher – Peel J in HO v TL

Peel J’s substantive judgment in HO v TL [2023] EWFC 215 is a compelling masterclass in addressing principle, guidance and the clear disposal of a smorgasbord of financial remedy issues within a must-read 27-page judgment for matrimonial finance practitioners. Costs approach However, it is the costs order which followed

Honesty – a Barrister’s Primary Code of Conduct

Honesty – a Barrister’s Primary Code of Conduct

Now in my fiftieth year of practice as a barrister, I consider myself fortunate to have joined the profession when I did. The Bar still at that time had within its ranks many who had served in the military, often with distinction, or who had subsequently experienced military training in

The Duty to Advise – Analysis of Lewis v Cunningtons Solicitors [2023] EWHC 822 (KB)

The Duty to Advise – Analysis of Lewis v Cunningtons Solicitors [2023] EWHC 822 (KB)

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2023/822.html Introduction There is little doubt from experience of general family finance practice that the frequency of solicitors’ use of client signed disclaimers has increased over the last decade. The form and practice of doing so is not consistent nor

Things lawyers believe they know, but sometimes don’t – the ‘without prejudice rule’

Things lawyers believe they know, but sometimes don’t – the ‘without prejudice rule’

Introduction Recent experience in practice shows that there remains at times some real misunderstanding within the profession as to when before the court it is permissible to refer to a ‘without prejudice’ offer made between parties and when it is not. The ‘without prejudice rule’ Obviously, when an offer is

Pre-Nuptial Agreement Drafting: Is the Profession Earning ‘an Honest Shilling’?

Pre-Nuptial Agreement Drafting: Is the Profession Earning ‘an Honest Shilling’?

Introduction In the same year when the Law Commission published its report Matrimonial Property, Needs and Agreements and recommended that there be ‘statutory confirmation of the contractual validity of marital agreements’ (1.32), Coleridge J, in his address at the 2014 Family Law Conference stated: ‘I am convinced that the

A Short Childless Marriage Lasting Just Months – an Award Too High?

A Short Childless Marriage Lasting Just Months – an Award Too High?

Introduction Falling in love at first sight for a glamorous looking woman on a Eurostar rail journey was for this Husband to prove a highly costly mistake. After just 5–7 months of cohabitation/marriage and 6 days of a London High Court hearing, W may on the other hand