Clarks Attorneys is a boutique, highly specialised firm practising exclusively in the areas of family and personal law.

Our clients are very often going through the most difficult and painful episodes of their lives, so we approach every matter not only with our usual specialist legal training and expertise, but also with compassion and sensitivity for all the parties involved.

Divorce is not merely a legal event. Couples in the throes of divorce proceedings find that accusations about the past, the breakdown in trust, and fears about the future can make constructive conversation between them impossible, and this is where parties need the guidance and support of experienced family lawyers. We see our clients as individuals with needs, hopes and fears, not simply as files on our desks.

As Japanese writer Haruki Murakami said, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” We hope to make our clients’ transitions through difficult life events as painless as possible.

Clarks Attorneys is a dynamic and progressive firm of attorneys. We strive to keep up with the complex and rapidly changing field of family law in South Africa and around the world. We uphold an unmatched standard of excellence in our work and in the personal service we deliver to clients.

We have extensive experience in those areas usually associated with family law, such as divorce, parental rights and responsibilities, maintenance and adoption. We also have particular expertise in cases with an international angle, including international child abduction, Hague Convention cases, foreign divorces for ex-South Africans, divorces between South Africans and foreign or non-resident spouses and all manner of international cases involving children. We also specialise in mediation, antenuptial contracts, co-habitation, same sex relationships, paternity, curatorship applications, relocation matters and international maintenance cases. We also have an admitted notary on staff. We have recently become involved in the area of collaborative divorce, which we believe may be the way of the future in divorce law.

The outcomes of clients’ marriages, divorces, maintenance disputes, residence and contact disputes and international relocations affect every other area of their lives, reaching long into the futures of themselves and their children. We therefore believe in managing clients’ cases closely with them and, where necessary, a multidisciplinary team of experts. We work closely with several psychologists and social workers who specialise in the effects of divorce on children and on the parties themselves. We have excellent professional relationships with a number of specialist advocates, forensic accountants, property valuers, maintenance court experts, tracing agents and private investigators.

We have a wealth of experience in handling so-called “big money” cases, which are essentially commercial in nature, and we are well known for our high degree of discretion in all our matters, including those for very high profile clients.

The firm’s senior director, Beverley Clark, has been practising for over 20 years and is a fellow of the prestigious International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, providing her with links to specialist family lawyers throughout the world.