Lawyers

Gillian Rivers

Gillian Rivers

Work Department

Family.

Position

Partner. Gillian advises on all areas of domestic and international family law and has an extensive international practice.

Gillian is the immediate past Chair to the Family Law Committee of the International Bar Association (IBA) and has been an officer since 2007. She is also a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL). She is on the editorial board of the College of Law. She is also a member of the LNTV Legal Expert Panel. She was a recommended member of the Citywealth Leaders’ List in 2015 and also rated as a Super Lawyer in the same year.

Gillian has a bias towards the financial aspects of relationship breakdown and regularly deals with highly complex, high-net-worth financial claims. She is also very experienced in private law children disputes and financial applications by a single parent on behalf of a child. She is experienced in private law children disputes, having acted in a number of important reported cases, including Re Y (A Child) (Private Law: Interim Change of Residence) [2014] EWHC 1068 (Fam). She was also involved in the ‘Cinderella Law’ campaign, which resulted in it becoming part of Statute in the Serious Crime Act 2015.

Gillian is a respected author and has written for publications such as the ‘Law Society Gazette’ and co-authored on ‘Clarke, Hall and Morrison on Children’. She is often quoted in print media and has broadcast on national radio.

She is the co-chair of the IBA Human Trafficking Task Force and is coordinating training in England and Wales to all police forces and the judiciary. She is also an invited member of the Santa Marta Group which has as its aim combatting human trafficking. Gillian’s work with the IBA and Santa Marta Group is carried out on a strictly pro bono basis. She is a panel advisor to Kevin Hyland OBE, Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. In 2016, Gillian was given Freedom of the City of London and became a Liveryman in The City of London Solicitors' Company.

Career

Qualified 1995; partner Rowberry Morris; partner Rivers Partnership; senior solicitor Stephenson Harwood; consultant Charles Russell LLP; partner Collyer Bristow 2007; partner Penningtons Solicitors LLP 2013. Lectures in family law and modern slavery both in the UK and abroad.

Memberships

Resolution; chair of the Family Law Committee of the IBA; co-chair of the IBA taskforce to combat human trafficking; member of the Santa Marta Group; Fellow of the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Member of Editorial Board College of Law. Governor to an independent school. Advisor to Kevin Hyland OBE.

Education

University of Law, Guildford.