Expertise

Fiona has experience advising clients in relation to high value financial cases with a focus on complicated asset structures, often with an international element. She has assisted on matters involving complex trust structure, pre-marital and dynastic wealth and corporate assets.

Fiona also has experience in children work and has assisted parents on private children disputes in relation to complex child arrangements, international leave to removes, parental alienation, as well as applications for non-molestation and occupation orders.

Fiona has a balance of experience of resolving matters both through alternative dispute resolution and through litigation. Most recently she represented a client in a contentious financial remedies matter at a final hearing in the Supreme Court.

Experience

• Standish v Standish [2024] EWCA Civ 567 and Standish (Appellant) v Standish (Respondent) – Successfully acted for the husband in the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal in a landmark case concerning the correct treatment of significant pre-marital wealth and the concepts of matrimonial property and ‘matrimonialisation’, leading to the largest ever reduction to a divorce award (45%) in this jurisdiction.
• ARQ v YAQ [2022] EWFC 128 – Acted for the applicant husband in High Court financial remedy proceedings, the key determinative involving arguments as to whether all or some of very significant pre-marital assets from the husband had become ‘matrimonialised’ and so subject to the sharing principle.
• Backstrom v Wennberg [2023] EWFC 79 – Acted for the wife in High Court financial remedy proceedings involving pre and post nuptial agreements.

Career

Fiona qualified in October 2021 having been both a paralegal and trainee solicitor at Stewarts. Prior to joining Stewarts in 2018, Fiona completed a BSc (Hons) in Biology at the University of Bristol before carrying out her Graduate Diploma in Law and Legal Practice Course at BPP University in London.

Accreditations and Memberships

Fiona is a member of Resolution (formerly the Solicitors Family Law Association) and a member of InterLaw.

Personal

Fiona is an avid reader and is rarely found without at least one book on the go. She enjoys attending the theatre and watching live music, and travels as often as she can. Fiona is a big fan of rugby and has travelled all over the world following the trials and tribulations of the England team.