Jane Craig > Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Jane Craig

020 7753 7533 jane.craig@penningtonslaw.com

Work Department

Family.

Position

Jane is the head of the family department. She specialises in the financial aspects of high-value divorce and civil partnership dissolution, financial claims on behalf of the children of unmarried parents (Schedule 1 claims), disputes between former cohabitants and disputes between parents about arrangements for their children. Many of her cases have an international dimension and Jane is a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL), a worldwide association of practising lawyers who are recognised by their peers as the most experienced and expert family law specialists in their respective countries.

Jane is ranked as a leading individual in The Legal 500. She is also recognised by Super Lawyers UK (Super Lawyers Magazine 2015 ranked Jane in the top 100 and the top 50: 2015 Women London Super Lawyers) and Best Lawyers UK as a leading expert in family law. She appears on the Citywealth Leaders List in the honours section and the Power Women List. She was shortlisted for the Citywealth Magic Circle Awards Woman of the Year Award 2015. Jane has played a leading role in the development and practice of family law for more than 30 years. She is a former chair of Resolution, the 6,000 strong leading organisation of family lawyers in England and Wales.

She was the first private law solicitor member of the Family Justice Council, which advises the government on family policy issues, and chaired its private law Children in Families Committee for six years. She is an active member of Resolution’s Cohabitation Committee, which campaigns for reform of the law to provide protection for vulnerable cohabitants. Jane has represented clients involved in some of the country’s leading reported cases, including T v T, a case relating to jurisdiction in European family disputes and Grey, one of the leading Court of Appeal decisions on the impact of cohabitation on maintenance claims for wives and former wives.

Career

Articled Middlesborough; qualified 1982; joined Manches LLP 1988; partner 1992; chairman of Resolution (formerly Solicitors’ Family Law Association) May 2001 to March 2003. Appointed the private law solicitor member of The Family Justice Council in June 2004; chair of The Family Justice Council Children in Families committee 2005-11; member of The Law Commission’s cohabitation project legal advisory group. Qualified collaborative lawyer. Has contributed to items about family law on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Law in Action’ and ‘Money Box’, as well as commenting regularly in the national and legal press.

Languages

A-level French.

Memberships

Resolution; Family Justice Council Money and Property committee; Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers; Collaborative Family Law; Resolution’s Cohabitation Committee.

Education

Hornsey High School for Girls; Southampton University (1979 LLB 2(1)).