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Team Members

Justine Woods

Partner
An accredited family law specialist with more than 20 years’ experience in the field, Justine leads Cooper Grace Ward’s family law team and is recommended as a leading family lawyer in major legal directories including Doyle’s Guide and Best Lawyers.

Justine Woods is a partner at Cooper Grace Ward and leads the family law team. She has been an accredited family law specialist for nearly two decades.

Having practised exclusively in family law for more than twenty years, Justine has extensive experience in all aspects of family law – children’s arrangements and parenting matters (including surrogacy), property settlement and spousal maintenance issues for both married and de facto couples, binding financial agreements and their international counterparts, together with child support and child maintenance trusts. Justine regularly presents at industry and professional education seminars for a range of bodies, including the Queensland Law Society, the Taxation Institute of Australia and Surrogacy Australia.

Justine has been recognised for her expertise as a leading family lawyer in independent legal directories, including Best Lawyers and Doyle’s Guide, based on client and market feedback.

  • Bachelor of Laws – University of Queensland
  • Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice – Queensland University of Technology
  • Solicitor – Supreme Court of Queensland
  • QLS Accredited Specialist (Family Law)
  • Member – Family Law Practitioners Association
  • Member – Family Law Section of the Family Law Council of Australia
  • Member – Collaborative Law Group
  • Doyle’s Guide 2020 – Leading Lawyer – Family and High Value & Complex Property Matters
  • Doyle’s Guide 2021 – 2022 – Leading Lawyer – Family and Divorce
  • Doyle’s Guide 2021 – 2022 – Leading Lawyer – Parenting and Children’s Matters
  • Best Lawyers Australia (since 2017) – Family Law and Family Law Mediation

Family Law

  • Representing clients in respect of children’s matters involving disputes about the interpretation of shared care under 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 in the order of $100 million across four countries, where disclosure and value were in issue.
  • Advising high net wealth individuals in respect of both property settlement and pre-nuptial agreements in the context of the changing family law principles regarding ‘special’ or entrepreneurial’ contributions in matters with asset pools of up to $200 million.
  • 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; protecting a family dynasty valued at more than $600 million.
  • 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.

Areas of Expertise

Publications

Justine and family law team recognised in latest Doyles rankings

Doyles Guide has released the 2023 rankings of family law firms and lawyers in Queensland, and Cooper Grace Ward has again performed strongly.

Understanding your own binding financial agreement and how to avoid DIY legal mistakes

In this video, CGW family law partner Justine Woods talks about understanding your binding financial agreement and why it might not be the best idea to try to be your own family lawyer.

What stays confidential in family law?

In this week’s video, associate Hannah Flanderka talks about what does and what does not stay confidential in a family law matter.