Overview

Nicola qualified and practised at a Legal 500 firm in Bristol before moving to the South East in 2001 where she worked for nine years at a firm in Hampshire as the Head of the Family Department. Nicola is known for her tenacious and pragmatic approach to representing clients, she routinely advises high net worth clients both nationally and internationally from our Woking and London offices.

Nicola practises family law exclusively with cases which cover all areas of family law and child law including:

Divorce
Financial matters
Cohabitation disputes
Injunctions
Forced marriage
Protection orders
Children matters

Nicola has worked on cases at all levels throughout the country, as well as complex children cases heard in the High Court. She has also represented numerous armed services personnel and police officers regarding divorce, child arrangements and financial matters.

At Blackfords LLP, Nicola carries out a range of family and child law cases which are predominantly private client matters and family mediation.

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What the directories say
Recommended lawyer – The Legal 500, 2023

Leading individual – Chambers & Partners 2022
- “An excellent solicitor with superb judgment and tactical acumen. She is hardworking, empathetic and a joy to work with. I highly recommend her” (Legal 500, 2023)
- “Nicola Chamberlain is a real team leader, ensuring that there is a focus on core values which underpin every aspect of the service they offer. A real delight to work with, always bringing insight and experience to each case. Whatever the pressures of case preparation or the complexity of the issues, Nicola thinks strategically, immaculate preparation.” (Legal 500, 2023)
- “An exceptional practitioner within her department. She has an extremely busy and successful practice, is a joy to work with. I cannot commend her highly enough in terms of her representation of parents in what are difficult and stressful proceedings. She is extremely personable, organised and efficient. The advice she gives clients is always spot on and consistently shows her excellent judgment.” (Legal 500, 2022)
- “Experienced, calm in a crisis and hard working.” (Legal 500, 2022)
- “Excellent at spotting the key issues and not wasting any time.” (Chambers & Partners, 2022)
- “Very good strategist and can handle really big, complex cases very well.” (Chambers & Partners, 2022)
- “Extremely calm, controlled and empathetic but also has great strategic oversight on a case” (Chambers & Partners, 2021)
- “She is exceptional in the way she assimilates a great deal of information very quickly” (Chambers & Partners, 2021)
- “Nicola Chamberlain is amazing. She deals with extremely complex cases and is always able to get to grips with very complex medical evidence quickly. She is regularly sought after in difficult children proceedings. She has a reputation for hard work and sensitivity which is well deserved.” (Legal 500, 2021)
- “Firm but fair and is able to take a measured view in order to progress a case” (Legal 500, 2020)
- “Pragmatic and capable and clearly enjoys a good rapport with her clients” (Legal 500, 2020)
- “Combines hard work with legal acumen, dedication and excellent judgement” (Legal 500, 2019)
Notable Cases
HC (A Child) [2014] EWHC 970 (Fam)
Memberships & associations
Nicola is a member of Resolution. Resolution is a national organisation of family lawyers who are committed to easing the pain and the financial costs of family breakdown. All Resolution members follow a code of practice which encourages solutions rather than confrontation using a conciliatory approach, taking into account the needs of the whole family
- Law Society – Family Law Accreditation