Family Lawyers & Applying for a Divorce Melbourne

Our specialist family and divorce lawyers aim to provide our clients with the most sensible advice in dealing with their individual family matters.

Our family lawyers have the support of specialists, both within and outside our law firm, for expertise in accountancy, financial planning, real estate, litigation and dispute resolution.

We offer family law advice in the following areas:

• financial agreements
• complex financial matters
• property division and property settlement
• applying for divorce
• spousal maintenance
• domestic relationships (de facto)
• parenting and children's arrangements
• relocation
• intervention orders
• child support
• residence & contact (custody & access)
• general advice

Generally there are two kinds of approaches:

1. Immediate, acrimonious and often expensive litigation. People are left drained both emotionally and financially and future relationships with their partner can be more difficult; and
2. Resolution by reasoned negotiation, mediation and using the most common sense and fair approach. In this way we aim to minimise emotional and financial stress and leave clients with the best possible outcome.

Our family lawyers encourage and support clients to try the second approach first. Our aim is to achieve the best result for our client in the most cost effective way.

However, there are some matters where it becomes necessary to litigate the matter in Court. This may be due to a matter of urgency to protect children or property and in those matters we work with experienced family law barristers to achieve the best result for our clients. Our family law specialists offer constant advice as to how the case is progressing so that a decision can be made early as to whether to proceed with court action or not.

Petra Thomson

Petra Thomson as Principal Family Lawyer, led the Hicks Oakley Chessell Williams family law team for three years up until December 2021.  She has been practising in the area of family law in Melbourne since 1996 and is a highly skilled and well regarded practitioner. 

Petra has made a tremendous contribution not only to the Family Law team, but to the greater HOCW team and we thank her for her wonderful input.  We wish Petra all the best with the next chapter and look forward to keeping in touch.

Our office locations

Our family lawyers are conveniently located at both our Melbourne CBD and our Mount Waverley law offices, a South Eastern suburb of Melbourne.

Visit our law firm for more.

Law Institute of Victoria Accredited Specialists - Family Law.