Burgess Mee

The firm was founded in 2013 by Peter Burgess and Antonia Mee, from top-ranked family practice Withers LLP.

The aim was to establish a firm that provided an equivalent service to City firms but at far more affordable prices. Its offices are based outside the city walls in London’s bustling residential areas where professionals and families live, namely in South-West, West and North London. Demand for the service has grown so that the firm now has 14 specialist family lawyers, a trainee solicitor, a team of paralegals and support staff, its own purpose-built offices in Clapham Common, an office in Hammersmith and Islington. All its lawyers have been trained at City or recommended practices. The firm also offers mediation with two mediators and collaborative law. The clients come from all walks of life: from City professionals, entrepreneurs, business people and those in the public eye to stay-at-home mothers as well as their spouses or partners. All are looking for expert advice for lower fees. There is a strong geographical focus on the London area which brings in an international client base. There has been demand since lockdown restrictions were eased, for face to face meetings at our offices, which many of our clients live near to.  This is encouraging for the future of the practice given the desire to locate offices in residential areas.

The firm: Burgess Mee Family Law is a specialist family law practice covering a whole range of domestic and international private family law work: divorce and financial remedy work, private law children disputes, cohabitation disputes and disputes between unmarried parents, domestic violence injunctions, pre- and post-nuptial agreements, surrogacy, and mediation and collaborative law.

Types of work undertaken: The firm has specialist experience in all aspects of divorce and separation, living together, disputes over money, parenting issues and pre- and post-nuptial agreements.

Burgess Mee has been described as ‘an excellent niche firm with intelligent and fair lawyers who go the extra mile and have the personal touch’. The firm provides ’a really top-tier service at very competitive prices’. Peter Burgess is described as ‘very straight-talking’ and ’impressive’. Antonia Mee has ‘excellent strategic insight’ and ’an impressive intellectual prowess, matched with real humanity and compassion’. One source has described the firm’s culture as matching ‘the knowledge and ability you would want with any solicitor with the compassion and focus on the individual, which is vital in family law’.