Who We Are

Collaborative Law Wales is an organisation of specialist family lawyers who share a commitment to resolving the issues following relationship breakdown in a constructive and amicable way.  We are all members of Resolution and all trained Collaborative lawyers.  Some of us are also trained mediators, arbitrators or accredited as specialist by The Law Society and/or Resolution.

Choosing a lawyer that is right for you is one of, if not the most important decision you can make.  Take time to explore our members’ profiles and individual firm websites.  Please do also feel free to call us for an informal chat to see whether the Collaborative process is right for you.

Some of the CLW members

Katie McColgan

Katie McColgan is the Head of the Family Team at Berry Smith solicitors. As a highly experienced family solicitor and Accredited Member of Resolution (a professional body of family lawyers committed to a non-confrontational approach to family disputes), she has always sought to achieve the best long term solution for her clients through professionalism, negotiation, mediation and collaboration. Believing that separating couples and particularly, their children, do best when they are able to continue working with each other, she became the first solicitor to train as a family mediator in Wales in 1992 and she continues to sit as the Chair of Family Mediators (South Wales) Limited to date. With the development of Collaborative Law, she was again among the first to train and operate in this newer area of family law. Listed as a first tier firm for family work in the Legal 500 and noted for her work with high value financial disputes, she is accredited by Resolution for her work with emergency remedies, child disputes and domestic violence. For many years Katie ran a question and answer column for a local newspaper, then for a local magazine, Kids come First. She is also the former Welsh representative in the National Interdisciplinary Forum in London. In her spare time, Katie currently works on a voluntary basis with various youth groups in the South Wales area.

Melanie Edwards

Melanie Edwards is a family lawyer with over 25 years experience in all aspects of family law and is a Partner in the firm of  JCP Solicitors. She is accredited by Resolution as a specialist family lawyer, with particular expertise in children law and in advanced financial matters arising from family breakdown. She is frequently involved in cases involving substantial assets. Melanie is based in West Wales but receives instructions from a wide geographical area. She has a constructive, pragmatic and conciliatory approach and an interest in alternatives to the Court process in trying to resolve family disputes. Melanie is a trained and practising collaborative lawyer committed to working with clients in the collaborative process in a way that achieves the best possible outcomes for families going through family breakdown, divorce or separation. Melanie is a fluent Welsh speaker.

Malcolm Stevens

Malcolm qualified in 1977 and has been Head of the Family Law Department at Hugh James for almost 12 years. He specialises in high net worth financial claims and private law children matters. The ethos of the Department is to provide support in a professional and sensitive manner and to achieve solutions by negotiation rather than litigation if at all possible. The Department has the advantage of being able to call upon expertise within the firm in the fields of tax, asset management, employment, trust and corporate law. Malcolm has been recognised in the 2012 edition of Legal 500 as having “a strong reputation, within the region and beyond, and regularly acts in multi-million pound divorce cases”. In the 2011 version he was described as having an “excellent, client-based, focused attitude, and is commercial: a very safe pair of hands”. The Department has a top tier rating. In Chambers UK 2011 Malcolm was described as having clients who have “absolute trust in him because he won’t settle for second best”.

Christine Ann Dyer

Christine has thirty four years’ experience in Family Law and qualified as a Mediator with the Solicitors Family Law Association (Resolution) in 1996.  Her keen interest in working with separating couples and individuals to find solutions together led her to train as a Collaborative Lawyer in 2006.  Aware of the emotional and financial consequences for the family going through a family breakdown she recognises the importance of finding the right process for clients.  Christine is an accredited specialist of Resolution and a practitioner member of the Law Society Mediation Panel.

Rhys Taylor

Rhys Taylor is a public access barrister, collaborative lawyer and qualified family arbitrator (MCIArb). He has 16 year’s experience at the bar and extensive experience in family finance matters for married and unmarried clients. As a public access barrister he is able to accept instructions direct from a member of the public without going through a solicitor, in appropriate cases. Please feel free to contact Rhys to discuss this option. As a barrister Rhys is also able to act as a “fifth person” in the collaborative process, in giving advice to each side on how to progress their collaborative negotiation, should an impasse be reached. Rhys has been mentioned in the standard legal directories, including Chambers UK 2012, where he is described as, “Really pleasant, thorough and efficient, particularly noted for his expertise in ancillary relief proceedings and TOLATA applications.” Rhys co-edits the website www.familyarbitrator.com and sits part time as a legal chairman of the Residential Property Tribunal (Wales).