Property & Real Estate Barristers
Philip Conrath
Year of call 1972
Instructing Philip
For further information or to instruct Philip please contact one of our following clerks:
Billy Forecast
Practice Managers
Arin Kalayci
Practice Managers
- Part-time Immigration Judge
- Council of Immigration Judge
- Family Law Bar Association
- Western Circuit
Philip Conrath has specialised in Family Law since 1998, dealing in all aspects of divorce, relationship breakdown and childcare. He is based in London and Wiltshire, and happy to travel nationally.
His private client practice includes Financial Orders, Trusts of Land Act and Inheritance Act cases.
Philip also has considerable experience in Public Law work, having acted for local authorities, parents, guardians, and grandparents. He has also acted for parents with mental health difficulties, and ‘Gillick’ competent children, and has handled Court of Protection cases, representing vulnerable adults, at High Court level. He has also dealt with adoption cases and Child Support Agency Appeals.
Regular clients tell him he is patient, tolerant, and a good communicator, and he gets on well with people. Philip also has experience as a Family Mediator.
He is happy to accept Public Access instructions in both financial and childcare disputes, and will offer advice on matters on an initial basis in a mutually convenient environment in London or Wiltshire.
Notable Cases
- BP & Others v Hertfordshire County Council & Anor [2014] EWCA Civ. 1524 Acted for a mother in the Court of Appeal, who, when assessed by a local authority residential assessment unit was considered, when parenting with the father, to be capable of caring for her then one child. Indeed, the child was described as "thriving" in the care of his parents. However, the proceedings were all about the risk of harm presented by the father's antagonism towards the local authority. He had responded to them with verbal abuse, threats, and a refusal to co-operate (including a refusal to name his second child, who was 9 months by the time of the hearing). It also concerned the possible independence of the psychologist, who, it transpired, was being paid an undeclared retainer by the local authority.
- ECC v M (2008) EWHC 332 (Fam) (21st February 2008) FD) Acted for the Local Authority in seeking to place a child abroad in America.
- C.F. B4/2014/0572 Acted for a father recently in the Court of Appeal in support of the grandmother's appeal based on the allegation that there had been no proper enquiry carried out by the lower Court as to the accuracy of historical background facts contained in local authority records (and relied on by them), and in respect of conclusions reached in respect of the grandmother's mental health, which were based on observations made by an ISW and the Guardian.