Helen is a Partner and the Head of our Brabners Personal team.
With over 30 years of experience as a family lawyer, Helen is one of the country's leading specialists in complex financial cases.
She takes a highly strategic approach to guide clients through the most critical moments in life — devising the solutions they need to protect themselves and their future generations.
Helen specialises in high-value and complex divorce and financial settlement cases that often involve shareholdings, business interests, family trusts, offshore assets and pensions. Many of her clients are business owners who need trusted advice on matters like valuation, liquidity, taxation issues and minority discount. She also has a large client base across the sport and entertainment sectors working with many high-profile individuals where discretion and privacy are key.
As the first family solicitor in Liverpool to qualify as an arbitrator, Helen is perfectly placed to adjudicate on interim and substantive financial issues as part of our alternative dispute resolution (ADR) team. Due to Helen’s vast experience in advising and negotiating financial matters on relationship breakdown, she is sought out by other professionals — most notably mediators — to provide tactical strategic advice, often before any proceedings are issued. While she strives to find solutions to keep matters out of Court, Helen is a skilled litigator adept at negotiating settlements within the Court arena when needed.
She also has a well-established practice supporting couples with pre- and post-nuptial agreements, civil partnerships and relationship agreements. Sensitivity and judgement are critical.
Helen has always felt privileged to work with families. Clients value her empathetic approach and ability to share the burden of their situation while striving to achieve the best outcome as efficiently as possible. Praised for her “second to none” client care and “collaborative and personable” communication skills (Chambers & Partners, 2024), Helen works in partnership with her clients to map out their goals and how best to move forward.
Helen is classed as a ‘Hall of Fame’ lawyer in The Legal 500 2024 which notes that she is “very thorough, sensible and intelligent and manages very large and complex cases calmly and efficiently — she always sees the bigger picture and does not get embroiled in trivial issues”.
Chambers and Partners 2024 recognises Helen as a Band 1 lawyer, stating that she is as "fantastic as you get” and “an exceptionally experienced family matrimonial lawyer dealing with high-net-worth counsel” who "brings a great deal of experience and gravitas to cases” and is “very balanced in her view, very controlled and brings a calm, level-headed approach to cases."
A member of Resolution and the former chair of the Liverpool Law Society’s Family Business Sub Committee, Helen regularly lectures to other members of the legal profession including the judiciary.
Helen was instrumental in creating our integrated Brabners Personal legal offering — designed to help clients plan for their futures and support them when the unexpected happens.
Since joining us in 2001, she has built a specialist and renowned family law team across the North West from her base in Liverpool.
