Christina Chinnock

Family

Christina Chinnock has developed a busy practice in the area of Family Law with experience at all levels up to and including The Court of Appeal. Her practice includes all areas of Child Law both in Public and Private Law proceedings as well as Adoption and Child Abduction cases.

Christina’s cases have included instructions on behalf of parents, Local Authorities and Guardians. She has also represented the Official Solicitor. She has extensive experience in a wide variety of cases and is regularly instructed on cases involving allegations of sexual, physical and emotional abuse and particularly cases that involve non-accidental injuries. She is an experienced and skilled advocate who has a particular rapport with vulnerable clients such as those with learning difficulties and mental health issues. Her down to earth and pragmatic approach generally, is a quality that ensures clients immediately feel reassured and comfortable in the situation they find themselves in.

She represents both parents and the child in relation to private law applications and has the ability to offer robust and realistic advice whilst maintaining a sensitivity to her client’s needs.

She is qualified to undertake cross examination on behalf of vulnerable people and children having undertaken the national training programme via The Inns of Court College of Advocacy.

Public Law

Her cases have included instructions on behalf of parents, Local Authorities and Guardians. She is regularly instructed on cases that involve non-accidental injury. Christina has been involved in cases that have required interpreters, including Bangladeshi, Polish and Chinese and has represented a profoundly deaf mother where the services of signers had been necessary.

Private Law

As well as representing parents on issues of contact and residence, Christina’s private law practice involves cases where children have needed representation. She has dealt with cases that have involved foreign jurisdiction, an example of which involved representing the mother, who was of French nationality and residing in the UK, but seeking to return to her native country where the father was an Iraqi national and practising Muslim. The specific issues addressed included the children’s consumption of Halal meat and circumcision.

Notable Cases

• In 2023, Christina was led by eminent silks in the High Courts in Manchester and Liverpool in two cases involving the death of a child.
• Re MW (Case management) [2010] 1 FLR 1093

Associations

Family Law Bar Association

Education

LLB, Cardiff University

Bar Course, Cardiff Law School

Prescribed Information

Christina Chinnock is a practising barrister, who is regulated by the Bar Standards Board. Details of information held by the BSB about Christina can be found here.

Christina Chinnock’s clerks will happily provide no obligation quotations for all legal services that she provides. Their contact details can be found here. It is most common for Christina to undertake Court and advisory work for a brief fee and refresher fee for each additional hearing day. For advisory work, conferences and/or additional paperwork, it is most commonly charged at an hourly rate where an estimate is given as a maximum amount to be charged, although if preferred fixed fees can be negotiated at the point of instruction. Christina typically returns paperwork within 14 days, however professional commitments, complexity and volume of documentation can affect these approximate timescales. If that is the case you will be notified and a new timescale provided.

Christina also undertakes Direct Access work. This work is undertaken on a contractual basis agreed between the client and Christina’s clerks. This is on fixed fee basis for a specific events such as a conference, advisory work, a hearing with additional hearing days (refreshers) or the drafting of specific documents. All work agreed to be undertaken by Christina with the fixed fee cost will be clearly outlined in the direct access contract signed by the client and will be payable in full prior to the commencement of the work.