We speak to those heading up some of the wide range of law firms found in the Channel Islands. From major multi-national players to boutique specialist firms, we find out their thoughts on the industry.
In this profile, we meet Advocate Barbara Corbett of Jersey-based family law firm Corbett Le Quesne to find out about her career path and her approach to a challenging area of law.
What path did you take to qualify as a lawyer?
I started work as a journalist in London, studying law in the evening where I met my husband. I moved to study full-time after a year, graduating in 1981. I wanted to become a barrister but could not take the bar course in Nottingham where we lived at that time, so we started a family instead. While my children were young I was a lay magistrate and a volunteer CAB advisor. I liked following cases through from the beginning at the CAB so decided to become a solicitor. Because I had been at home with the children for so long I took a Masters degree in Welfare Law to see if I could cope with studying again. That was when I learnt about child law.
I went on to take the Legal Practice Course, obtained a training contract at Brethertons, a firm in Rugby, specialising in family law. I worked my way up to partner and had some consulting work in Jersey in 2003-2006. In 2007, when all our five children had left home to go to university, I looked to move to a fresh challenge. I called up the advocate I had been working with in Jersey, Timothy Hanson and he suggested that I join Hanson Renouf and set up a family department, which I did in 2007. I found that I didn’t like not being able to present cases in court, so I took the Jersey Law Course (the first year the course ran) and was called as a Jersey advocate in 2010. I became a partner at Hanson Renouf in 2011, the firm merged to become Benest Corbett Renouf in 2016 and my colleague Nick Le Quesne and I moved to set up our specialist family law firm Corbett Le Quesne on 1 November 2017.
What do you find rewarding about your role?
The majority of our clients come to us when they are in a difficult situation. It is so satisfying to be able to help people move through their problems and come out at the other side walking tall with confidence to meet the world afresh.
What are the challenges of your role, and how do you overcome them?
It is challenging when there is just not enough to go round when one household becomes two or when drink and drugs and trauma mean children are removed from their families. To overcome such challenges is hard. Work needs to be done much earlier, to give people the tools to be able to support themselves. Children need to be given the best possible start and proper resources to avoid them becoming adults who cannot cope with parenthood. Support and love and care are needed. All too often they are missing.
What is the professional success you are most proud of during your career?
Helping the move to the separate representation of children in care proceedings in Jersey.
What do you consider to be the main challenges facing the legal industry at the moment?
In family law we desperately need no fault divorce and changes to the Children (Jersey) Law to avoid the discrimination there is against non-standard families.
We’ve just moved into a new decade, how do you see the industry changing over the next 10 years?
I hope that Jersey will bring in no fault divorce, review the law on cohabitation, ensure that the law treats all families fairly and provide good quality provision in Jersey for children in care so they don’t need to be sent away from the island.
How does Corbett Le Quesne differentiate themselves as a firm?
We are a specialist family law firm. We help people with all family law issues from pre-nuptial agreements to parenting plans, from child abduction to financial settlements from surrogacy to collaborative law. We are experts in our field. We are qualified in both Jersey and English law and have a significant international practice. We believe in working out the best way to resolve problems, mediation, negotiation, cooperation, arbitration and where necessary, litigation.
Describe your management style.
Collaborative and inclusive.
If you weren’t a lawyer, what would you be?
A journalist.
