Justine Woods

Family Law

• Representing clients in respect of children’s matters under the constantly evolving parenting provisions of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).
• Assisting clients to address unwelcome recommendations in a family report about their children’s arrangements and other issues that may affect parenting matters, such as mental illness, alcohol or drugs or parental alienation.
• Representing grandparents, other relatives or carers (for example former spouses, partners or sperm donors) to secure time with children (including on the death of biological parents) and successfully opposing such applications.
• Advising on the full spectrum of property settlement matters, ranging from the division of a house and superannuation to cases with assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars in Australia and overseas.
• Advising spouses and in other cases their parents or grandparents who generated the wealth in respect of contested property matters, financial agreements and asset protection as to the inclusion of family wealth held in trusts or companies.
• Negotiating and drafting financial agreements.
• Negotiating and drafting financial agreements for clients who, for example, simply wish to protect one asset, an inheritance or a business by way of a comparatively straight-forward document.
• Negotiating and drafting court orders that affected a property settlement and business restructure with third parties in a manner that secured all the available tax and duty concessions.
• Establishing child maintenance trusts for clients to allow them to meet their child support and spousal maintenance obligations in the most tax effective manner.
• Advising clients on the interaction between their relationship agreements and their estate planning, business structuring and asset protection strategies.