Family Law

Overview

Deka Chambers boasts a team of specialist family law barristers. We have a strong reputation as approachable and conscientious practitioners who deliver excellent results.

Family law barristers at Deka Chambers offer advice and advocacy in all areas of family practice and regularly appear in the High Court and Court of Appeal.

As members of a multi-disciplinary set of chambers our expertise is complemented by access to practitioners in other specialisms when our cases involve issues in areas of civil or criminal law.

The team is also able to provide advice in writing, remotely by videolink or in person at our modern conference facilities in Chambers, located between the Royal Courts of Justice and the Central Family Court.

Family Law Expertise

Recent Articles

Our team publishes articles on the websites of Family Law Week, London Boroughs Legal Alliance and Local Government Lawyer, as well as on Deka Chambers’ own website.

Training

Members of the team regularly provide CPD training for professional clients on a variety of family topics. For more information please contact us.

Awards

Deka Chambers have a range of excellent barristers.

Legal 500 2026

The chambers as a whole is excellent. The clerks are helpful and efficient.

Legal 500 2026

Deka are an excellent and competent set. They have good availability of counsel from the senior to junior end.

Legal 500 2026

The clerks are very helpful and efficient.

Legal 500 2026

Deka Chambers has a very good family team, all solid and high calibre.

Legal 500 2025

Deka Chambers is a go-to set for childcare cases.

Legal 500 2025

Deka Chambers is a reputed family law set.

Legal 500 2025

Deka Chambers is a very strong set for care proceedings, particularly more complex cases.

Legal 500 2025

The clerks are efficient and very helpful. Louis Candy and Abigail Clark are very professional and quick to respond.

Legal 500 2025

The clerks' room is approachable. Jaime Brooks is the go-to clerk to find counsel and goes above and beyond to help when there is an issue or a clash.

Legal 500 2025

I can always rely on the clerks to do their utmost to assist, particularly in urgent situations. This is my favourite chambers to deal with due to its strong and approachable clerking team.

Chambers and Partners 2025

The clerks are very attentive and make themselves available.

Chambers and Partners 2025

Joint Deputy Senior Clerk Jamie Brooks goes out of his way to be helpful and is super responsive.

Chambers and Partners 2025

The clerks are always available by phone or email and always willing to help. Practice Manager Louis Candy and Junior Clerk Abigail Clark are particularly good and efficient.

Chambers and Partners 2025

A set of high quality... always offer excellent advice and representation.

Legal 500

Deka Chambers is a focused family team with some strong juniors who can offer a good balance of experience and good skills.

Legal 500

Deka Chambers is a strong set with some excellent barristers who are well respected in children’s law.

Legal 500

Deka Chambers has a strong team with very able barristers undertaking public law care work.

Legal 500

Family Law Barristers

Barristers

Clerks

Seniority

Surname

King's Counsel

Tim Parker KC

Call 1995 | Silk 2022

Edward Lamb KC

Call 2006 | Silk 2024

Juniors (15 years +)

Tara Vindis

Call 1996

Nerys Wyn Rees

Call 1997

Tabitha Barran

Call 1998

Marc Tregidgo

Call 2002

Oliver Millington

Call 2003

Alastair Hogarth

Call 2005

Kate Lamont

Call 2007

Laura Bumpus

Call 2008

William Dean

Call 2011

Juniors

John Schmitt

Call 2013

Laura Hibberd

Call 2013

Max Melsa

Call 2015

Thomas Jones

Call 2015

Kyah Mufti

Call 2016

Theodore Bunce

Call 2017

Lucy Lodewyke

Call 2018

Francesca Kolar

Call 2018

Amelia Katz

Call 2018

Madeleine Miller

Call 2019

Louise Thomson

Call 2019

Imogen Todd

Call 2020

Bethany Hutchison

Call 2021

Charlie Stonehill

Call 2021

Thomas Clarke

Call 2022

Julia Brechtelsbauer

Call 2023

Megan Bithel-Vaughan

Call 2023

Pupils

Florence Stocker

Beatrice Fatungase

Charlie Blair

Senior Clerks & Practice Directors

Jaime Brooks

Practice Director

Practice Managers

Kian Day

Practice Manager

Assistant Practice Managers

Abigail Clark

Assistant Practice Manager

Latest News & Events

View all

Outside the Box: Unregulated Donor Conception and LGBTQ+ Parenthood

Meeting your partner online used to be cause for embarrassment and spy-worthy cover stories about “how we met”. Nowadays, it is entirely unremarkable. Similarly, there used to be shame and secrecy attached to use of assisted reproduction methods such as In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF). Again,…

News
04/08/2026

Hair Strand and Nail Testing in Care Proceedings: Where are we, two years on from Re: D?

This article is written by Max Melsa as part of the August 2026 edition of the Family Law Dekagram (newsletter). I had the privilege of being involved in Re D (Children: Interim Care Order: Hair Strand Testing) [2024] EWCA Civ 498 in which the Court…

News
04/08/2026

A new approach to deprivation of liberty

This month has seen a significant change in how practitioners and courts are to approach deprivations of liberty for both adults and children moving forward with the Supreme Court decision in A Reference by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland of a devolution issue under…

News
07/07/2026

Subscribe to our mailing list

Deka Chambers: 5 Norwich Street, London EC4A 1DR

Cookie	Duration	Description
ARRAffinity	session	ARRAffinity cookie is set by Azure app service, and allows the service to choose the right instance established by a user to deliver subsequent requests made by that user.
ARRAffinitySameSite	session	This cookie is set by Windows Azure cloud, and is used for load balancing to make sure the visitor page requests are routed to the same server in any browsing session.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement	1 year	Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie records the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
CookieLawInfoConsent	1 year	CookieYes sets this cookie to record the default button state of the corresponding category and the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie.
rc::a	never	This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
rc::c	session	This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
sxa_site	session	This cookie is used to identify the webiste visitor's session state across page requests on server.
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
yt-player-headers-readable	never	The yt-player-headers-readable cookie is used by YouTube to store user preferences related to video playback and interface, enhancing the user's viewing experience.
yt-remote-cast-available	session	The yt-remote-cast-available cookie is used to store the user's preferences regarding whether casting is available on their YouTube video player.
yt-remote-cast-installed	session	The yt-remote-cast-installed cookie is used to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.
yt-remote-connected-devices	never	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's video preferences using embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-device-id	never	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's video preferences using embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-fast-check-period	session	The yt-remote-fast-check-period cookie is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences for embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-session-app	session	The yt-remote-session-app cookie is used by YouTube to store user preferences and information about the interface of the embedded YouTube video player.
yt-remote-session-name	session	The yt-remote-session-name cookie is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.
ytidb::LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEY	never	The cookie ytidb::LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEY is used by YouTube to store the last search result entry that was clicked by the user. This information is used to improve the user experience by providing more relevant search results in the future.

Cookie	Duration	Description
_ga	1 year 1 month 4 days	Google Analytics sets this cookie to calculate visitor, session and campaign data and track site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognise unique visitors.
_ga_*	1 year 1 month 4 days	Google Analytics sets this cookie to store and count page views.
_gat_gtag_UA_*	1 minute	Google Analytics sets this cookie to store a unique user ID.
_gid	1 day	Google Analytics sets this cookie to store information on how visitors use a website while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the collected data includes the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.

Cookie	Duration	Description
PREF	8 months	PREF cookie is set by Youtube to store user preferences like language, format of search results and other customizations for YouTube Videos embedded in different sites.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	6 months	YouTube sets this cookie to measure bandwidth, determining whether the user gets the new or old player interface.
VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA	6 months	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's cookie consent state for the current domain.
YSC	session	Youtube sets this cookie to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages.