I love being a reflective supervisor and being able to provide my supervisees with a safe place to talk about whatever may concern them. I currently work with lawyers at all levels including a two-year qualified solicitor, a newly promoted partner, a senior consultant (all of whom work in law firms), and a senior lawyer running their own practice.
As a reflective supervisor, my supervisees benefit from my 11 years’ experience as head of the Family team at a large Central London firm. Since 2024 when I stood down as partner and head of team, I have worked part time as a senior consultant.
I am also a trained coach. In 2024, I undertook an International Coaching Federation (ICF) accredited postgraduate 4-month course in Business and Personal Coaching. Where helpful and with the supervisee’s agreement, I can use coaching tools within the reflective supervision sessions.
Still working part time, supervisees find it helpful that I remain actively involved in client work dealing with all types of private family work – litigation as well as well as NCDR such as mediation including solicitor assisted mediation, and collaborative law.
Given my experience, I understand the pressures that family lawyers face in their day-to-day client work and in their careers, with demands such as billing, business development and pressure from their managers and peers. I can also appreciate the juggling that practitioners face on the home front. I am a single parent with 16-year-old twins and have had my fair share of personal challenges about which I have written (such as juggling in the Covid pandemic, on dealing with grief and teenagers, and around autism (my late sister was autistic)).
As a member of the voluntary Family Solutions Group (which seeks to reframe the culture around separation to reduce parental conflict), in March 2026 I co-authored the FSG’s latest report, Putting Children First: the Evolving role of the Family Law Professional, within which I drafted a chapter on the benefits of Reflective Supervision/Practice https://www.familysolutionsgroup.co.uk/putting-children-first/
My favourite part of being head of team was supporting my colleagues (trainees, associates and partners) and mentoring and assisting them in their careers. It is these experiences that led me to qualify as a reflective supervisor and coach. When I stood down as partner in early 2024, I appreciated the many lovely comments on LinkedIn around my leadership, from both within and outside of my firm. One of my favourite external comments was ‘you’ve not only inspired and supported your own team, but also a generation of family lawyers within the industry’. I hope to continue this support in my practice as a reflective supervisor.
