Phil Anderson > 4 King's Bench Walk > London, England > Barrister Profile

Phil Anderson

Work Department

Family

Position

Barrister

Career

Phil’s practice encompasses a wide range of family law including: private law children, financial remedies, Schedule 1 claims, TOLATA, public law, child abduction and injunctive proceedings. 

 

Finance

Phil practises in all areas of financial remedies proceedings, including applications pursuant to TOLATA 1996 and Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989. He represents clients at all stages of proceedings and has experience of effectively dealing with litigants in person, successfully securing costs against them where they have acted unreasonably. 

 

Public Law

Phil has experience in public law children cases acting for parents at all stages of proceedings. He has experience of representing vulnerable clients and those that have difficulty giving instructions. Phil also has experience being led as junior counsel in complex multi-week fact finding hearings. Recent cases have included allegations of physical abuse towards the children, controlling and coercive behaviour, parental alienation and domestic violence.

 

Private Law

Phil regularly acts in applications for Child Arrangement Orders, Prohibited Steps Orders and Specific Issue Orders. He has experience in complex cases involving allegations of domestic abuse, child abuse and cases in which a Guardian has been appointed. Recently Phil has been successful in multi-day fact finding hearings, one where he obtaining findings of stalking and control and coercion against the other party, and another where findings were made of parental alienation over the course of several years.

 

Child Abduction

Phil has represented clients at final hearings in proceedings issued under the Inherent Jurisdiction of the High Court.  He has successfully defended clients against allegations of abuse in international child abduction cases and secured findings against the abducting parent that they had been lying about their motivation for removal.

Languages

Phil is a fluent Italian speaker and has a good understanding in a number of other languages including Farsi, Spanish and German.

Memberships

Family Law Bar Association

Education

King’s College London and Università di Bologna (law and European legal studies)

City Law School (BPTC)

Personal

Phil was called to the bar by Middle Temple in 2014 as a Queen Mother Scholar. Following completion of pupillage with 4KBW, Phil’s practice initially encompassed Family, Crime, Immigration and Civil law.

 

Prior to his career as a barrister Phil worked for a several years at the Royal College of Nursing as an advocate representing nurses in a wide range of disciplinary, capability, grievance and sickness hearings.

 

Outside of his work in the UK, Phil has undertaken pro bono work overseas in Uganda for a prisons charity and in Texas for a law firm which exclusively focused on death row cases.