Family Lawyers are costly, especially during financially tough times like divorce. It is important that you keep in focus your long term financial health and the financial health of your partner. 

Quite often children are involved and financially ruining your partner or attempting to do so is only going to make both yourselves and your children poorer, and your family lawyers richer. 

If your goal is to leave an abusive partner, or if your marriage has just fizzled out slowly, you should always try your hardest to shop around when looking for a family lawyer. Many family lawyers are drawn to clients that want to fight. More time in Court is of course, more money for the lawyers.

Often times people tend to be very short sighted when it comes to financial settlements. A good family lawyer should be able to tell you within reasonable parameters what kind of financial settlement you should expect when divorcing.

It is always advisable to diffuse and to manage family law matters in a mature and reasonable fashion. Unfortunately family law is inherently emotional and sometimes due to one or both partners, long term Court proceedings are inescapable. Just know that the more you want to fight, the more you have to lose. Trying your best to move forward and helping or allowing your partner to move forward is always the best option. 

In the unfortunate event that you do need to engage a family lawyer, please keep in mind that there are no winners in vexatious family law proceedings. Only bitterness. 

While your lawyer will act how you instruct them to act, it is not always in your best interests to fight against inevitable outcomes, a good lawyer will seek to provide you with updated short, medium and long term realistic goals in relation to your matter. 

Strata By-Laws are essential rules made for a particular building in order to keep the building at a certain standard expected by the owners. 

Sometimes Strata By-Laws can be interpreted in your favour, for instance a By-Law may allow visitors to park cars in unused common areas of the car park. Other By-Laws may go against you, for example by banning pets. 

When making alterations to your property internally it is very important that you seek the advice of a lawyer in determining whether you are able to renovate or change parts of your dwelling. When alterations touch or concern common property as a general rule you cannot change that part of the building. However, you can seek to make a By-Law that allows you to add to, demolish or rebuild structural elements with the help of a specialist builder or engineer and a lawyer drafting the By-Law. 

The By-Law will need to be accepted by the owners corporation, it is not a sure thing. However you do have a chance at improving your property if you can convince the owners corp to accept your By - Law. 

Drafting By Laws can be quite technical and requires in depth research. It is always advisable to talk to a lawyer before trying to change a By-Law. 

I have travelled to and networked with lawyers in Gibraltar. Gibraltar can offer people with fantastic company structures and residency status. 

Gibraltar is truly unique in many respects and is a place every business person should know about.
It holds sovereignty through the UK and has a common law legal system. It is landlocked with Spain and has it's own international airport. Gibraltar has been held for 300 years and commands picturesque views of Both Spain and North Africa. 

Any person that can prove their source of income and good character is able to purchase purchase a company in Gibraltar. Professional Directors can be nominated to run the company for you. The corporate tax rate is 10% and there is no tax on deposits held at the bank. Gibraltar does require some tax be paid and is therefore not strictly speaking a tax haven. This makes Gibraltar one of the best safe spots in Europe for holding companies. 

You have the choice of several european private banks and the minimum deposit with these institutions is approximately 200,000 pounds. Some have a minimum deposit of 1 Million. 

If you are interested in moving to Gibraltar or Europe special residency is available for those worth over 2m pounds. 

You need to provide reports from a professional of good character and also from your accountant proving that you have total assets in excess of 2 million pounds. 

You need to either rent or purchase a property that is approved by the Authorities in Gibraltar. This should cost approximately 2000-4000 pounds per month to rent and approximately 200,000 pounds to buy. 

Special residency entitles you to a sliding capped tax rate between 22,000 to 33,000 pounds per year. 

This effectively means you can come and go as you please in Gibraltar, drive over the boarder to Spain and through the south of France. Take a plane to the Swiss Alps or head to the UK for a cup of tea.

Whether your income for the year was $300,000 or 100 million your income tax rate will be capped at between 22,000 and 33,000 pounds. 

After spending some time on the Rock of Gibraltar and meeting some of the people there it became quite clear. Special residency is a well known secret for the worlds rich who wish to enjoy fantastic year round weather and access to Europe. 

With the recent Brexit from the EU there will be a transitionary period but it seems likely that Gibraltar will be business as usual for another 300 years. 

I can discuss company or residency set ups in Gibraltar in more detail. 

To be as clear as possible you need a lawyer that is willing to get to know you and your case back to front. You don't need a solicitors that is often seen in the media to obtain a good result, these solicitors quite often run practices that delegate and overload their employee solicitors with work and charge higher fees. 

The best way to choose a lawyer is to meet them in person and find one fits your values. Choosing a lawyer with experience is vital but it is more important that your lawyer has time for you and your matter. There is nothing worse as a client than having a lawyer who is too busy to speak to you. These lawyers are usually overloaded with work to the point that the quality of their work can suffer. 

The best lawyer on the day is undoubtably the one that knows the case back to front. There is danger in engaging a lawyer that is managing  50+ clients. 

How do you choose a lawyer then? The best answer I can give you is to look around and talk to lawyers. Get a feel for their current work load and choose them because you feel comfortable with them and trust them. Do not use fees as the sole estimator of quality, we all studied the same legal course and while some are more naturally gifted and some more experienced than others, a good legal representation is based on preparation before the court date.

If you feel your lawyer does not have the time to help you through the process there is a good chance they do not have the time and you should find a lawyer that does. 

You should also be wary of lawyers that make promises, Courts often come to unfair decisions as the rule of law is designed to apply strictly in most circumstances. Just because something is unfair does not mean you will always escape penalty, especially without putting forward compelling evidence.

Be wary of lawyers that do not seek to tender evidence to back up your claims. This type of supporting evidence is crucial such as employment letters, character letters and expert evidence such as mechanical, psychological and forensic reports. Mere words alone from a slick talking lawyer will not guarantee you a good outcome, ground work on a matter does.