Roopa has over 20 years’ experience advising on family law matters and is a qualified family mediator and collaborative lawyer. She has significant expertise negotiating financial settlements on behalf of clients who are divorcing or separating and acting on complex children issues. Her cases often have international elements or third-party interests, such as family trusts and prenuptial agreements.
Roopa’s clients include wealthy individuals, entrepreneurs, academics, and trustees who instruct her for her specialisms in divorce and dissolution of civil partnerships, financial settlements and negotiation, pre- and post-nuptial agreements.
Expertise
- Divorce and dissolution of civil partnerships
- Division of finances on separation/divorce.
- Pre- and post-nuptial agreements
- Section 37 proceedings and freezing injunctions
- Interim maintenance
- Separation agreements
- Cohabitation agreements
- Acting for third-party interests, i.e. intervenors
- Disputes involving children – both national and international including child arrangement orders, prohibited steps orders, specific issue orders and urgent applications, and relocation with children both nationally and internationally
- Injunctions – non-molestation and occupation orders
- Collaborative law
- Mediation
- Private FDRs
- Arbitration and other forms of NCDR
Experience
- Acted for a wife with a considerable inherited property portfolio. Dealt with the matter through non-court dispute resolution at a private FDR and reached a settlement that recognised the needs of the father but importantly also recognised the source of the family wealth, with the wife receiving credit for this.
- Advised on a prenuptial agreement where there was dynastic wealth on one side in excess of £80m.
- Advised a wife in divorce proceedings where the assets were global and one trust alone exceeded £500m in value. This involved complicated tax issues and therefore consultation with a number of tax advisers.
- Advised a mother on relocating with her children from one part of England to reside with her new partner in Cambridgeshire. The competing interests involved one child whose father resided in the original location and was opposed the move, set against the desire of the mother to establish family life with her new partner and father of her youngest child who could not relocate to the original area because of work.
- Advised a husband in a same-sex marriage on financial settlement issues where there had already been an earlier division of assets.
- Acted for a husband in both financial and children matters. Wife was extremely hostile to husband’s financial claims especially as all three of their children had additional needs that needed to be factored in. Wife inflated her claims. The matter was resolved at final hearing.
- Acted for a business owner whose wife was also a shareholder and was undermining the day-to-day running of the business as well as alienating the children against their father. Dealt with both financial and Children Act applications to court.
Please note: The experience list above may include examples of work completed prior to joining Keystone Law.
Recognition
Recognised in Chambers and Partners Guide 2024 for Family/Matrimonial
Recommended in Spears 500 for Family Law
Recognised in The Legal 500 2024 for East Anglia: Private Client: Family
“Level-headed and pragmatic” and “manages to combine a robust legal knowledge with a caring, empathic approach to her clients.” The Legal 500 2024
Member of Resolution & Former Chair of the Cambridge & West Suffolk Committee
Member of the Cambridgeshire Law Society
Member of the Law Society’s Family Law Committee
Career
Roopa qualified as a solicitor in 2001. Prior to joining Keystone in 2024, Roopa worked at the following firms:
- HCR Hewitsons
- BDB Pitmans
- Birketts LLP