Joanne Edwards

Jo joined the family department of London firm Manches in March 1999, where she became a Partner in January 2005. Manches' family department has been ranked by Chambers as a leader in its field for the past 15 years and has 35 lawyers (3 Australians among them).

Jo has specialised in family law work for over 10 years and the mainstay of her work is high net worth divorces with an international dimension. She also has extensive experience of private law children disputes, often with a complex or novel element, principally applications for residence, contact or leave to remove (known as "relocation" applications in Australia).

Although the department's reputation is founded in litigation, as one of the younger partners Jo has trailblazed the promotion of alternatives to Court. She was one of the first lawyers in England to train in collaborative law after its arrival on our shores in 2003, and today the department has 12 trained collaborative lawyers. She is also the department's only trained mediator.

Jo is involved in various ADR initiatives. She sits on Resolution's ADR committee; she chairs one of London’s first practice groups, The London Collaborative Group; and she sits on (and for a time chaired) the London Collaborative Umbrella Group, whose purpose is to promote and synchronise the development of collaborative law in London. She is currently involved in efforts to establish a cross-European network of collaborative lawyers. She has featured widely on TV, radio and in the newspapers talking about collaborative law.

In the last 18 months Jo has been fortunate enough to travel to jurisdictions as far afield as Toronto, Adelaide, Cork, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Orleans and now Sydney, and has very much enjoyed getting to know other collaborative communities and exchanging ideas and experiences.