The team at Harrogate Family Law have thrown their weight behind the local community this year with a range of initiatives aimed at supporting the town and its services.

As well as renewing its annual support for Harrogate International Festivals and Saint Michael’s Hospice, Emma Doughty and Laura Mounsey are to share their specialist expertise by providing training to volunteers at Harrogate Citizen’s Advice Bureau on the most common family law pitfalls and how best to avoid them.

Emma said: “We are acutely aware that the availability of Legal Aid is extremely restricted and that free valuable services such as Citizen’s Advice and University Law Clinics are relied on to plug the gap.

The difficulty for volunteer advisers is that Family Law is extremely discretionary and fact specific and there are a number of practical considerations that need to be borne in mind from the outset. Decisions such as moving out of the house, paying the bills in the interim before your divorce is complete and dividing up assets can all cause problems if they are not approached in the right way.

We will train advisers about the steps that families can take to keep their legal costs to a minimum and assist them with recognising the areas which require expert input.”

Laura and Emma have also been invited to deliver tailored training to the local Independent Domestic Abuse Services (IDAS) Team to explore how Family Practitioners and IDAS can best work together to support vulnerable individuals with a range of Family Law issues.

Emma added: “Harrogate Family Law are delighted to collaborate with these fantastic local services and hope that by working together we can be better equipped to assist members of the local community with the different stages of relationship breakdown and the associated challenges.”

The team will also be involved in a number of charity events throughout the year, including a Three Peaks Challenge which Andrew Meehan will take part in with Harrogate International Festivals to support their fundraising.