Our flagship event for financial professionals advising or looking to advise on divorce and separation.
The Financial Advisers Conference is back at Eastside Rooms Birmingham, Thursday 26 and Friday 27 February 2026
After another year of overwhelmingly positive feedback, we’ve got a programme crafted with all the content you loved as well as topical sessions to further your expertise. Expect both technical and practical content from the experts, a live podcast, plus plenty of networking.
The main programme is on Thursday, with further content on Friday for Resolution Accredited Specialist Financial Advisers (or for those in the process of accrediting). This will include a roundtable discussion and workshop.
Early Bird prices – Available until 05 December
Member Price £180 (exc. VAT)
Non-Member Price £260 (exc. VAT)
TICKET PRICES – Available from 05 December
Member Price £240 (exc. VAT)
Non-Member Price £330 (exc. VAT)
Programme
Thursday 26 February 9.00am – 5.00pm
A taste of the line-up:
| Redefining Value: Integrating Financial Services and Technology in Family Legal Practice | Alan Larkin, Family Law Partners & Nova |
| Giving Trauma-Informed Advice: Practical Insights for Family Justice Professionals | Doris Cozma, Doris Cozma Divorce Coaching (DC²) |
| Financial Advisors’ Accreditation Q&A | Tom Farrell, Tom Farrell Financial & Mediation |
| Demystifying LTIPs and Private Equity in Divorce Settlements: A Guide for Financial Planners and Lawyers | Ceri Griffiths, Willow Brook Lifestyle Financial Planning |
| Talking Family Law – LIVE Podcast recording: Economic Abuse, Family Law Reform, and the role of Financial Advisers | Angela Lake-Carroll, Resolution; Anita Mehta, 4PB; Simon Blain, Forsters & Steve Hennessy, Beeswax Wealth Management Limited |
| From Courtroom to Client: Understanding the impact of Standish vs Standish on Financial Planning | Ria Coles, Brunel Wealth |
| Breaking Free – (Round Table Discussion) | Brian Hill, Pathfinders; Phil O’Connor, On Divorce & Mary Waring, Mary Waring Associates Ltd |
Friday 27 February 9.00am – 12.00pm
Content for Resolution Accredited Specialist Financial Advisers (or for those in the process of accrediting). This will include a roundtable discussion and workshop.
Thursday 26 February
Welcome Address from Conference Chair
Steve Hennessy FPFS, Resolution Accredited Specialist financial adviser and Director, Beeswax Wealth Management
Redefining Value: Integrating Financial Services and Technology in Family Legal Practice
In a legal landscape transformed by low-cost generative AI, family lawyers face a defining moment. Redefining Value: Integrating Financial Services and Technology in Family Legal Practice explores how technology is reshaping professional identity and client expectations, and how specialist financial support can markedly improve outcomes for people navigating divorce or separation.
As AI removes many traditional information-gathering tasks, lawyers must articulate a sharper value proposition—one that combines legal expertise, financial clarity and a distinctly human, empathetic role. Clients increasingly seek holistic guidance: structured financial analysis, budgeting support, wealth-planning insight and early risk assessment that illuminate the real-world impact of their choices. Providing integrated access to qualified financial specialists strengthens a genuinely client-centred model, offering reassurance and long-term stability during moments of upheaval.
The session examines how decision-tree automation, personalised digital pathways and early-intervention tools can streamline both legal and financial triage, enabling NCDR processes to scale and improving the speed and quality of decision-making. As unregulated providers and AI-driven platforms compete for attention, firms that clearly communicate the combined value of legal and financial expertise will stand out in a crowded market.
Alan Larkin is a family law solicitor of nearly 30 years’ standing. Alan co-founded Family Law Partners, in 2011, now employee-owned with 30 lawyers and is recognised as one of the top three family law firms in England, according to The Times.
In 2017, Alan secured a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Brighton, supported by Innovate UK to apply AI in the family law sphere.
Alan’s AI application, Nova Engage, has been used by over 18,000 members of the public to instruct their family solicitors for a first consultation.
In 2024, the AI know-how created by Family Law Partners was spun out into a law tech start-up called Nova. The primary focus is to build early intervention agents for out-of-court dispute resolution and AI-facilitated pathways to regulated legal advice. Our holistic approach to family law practice and technology inevitably creates opportunities for collaborations with therapeutic colleagues and financial advisers.
Giving Trauma-Informed Advice: Practical Insights for Family Justice Professionals
When clients come to financial advisors during separation, they are rarely operating from a place of emotional equilibrium. Trauma (whether acute, chronic, or situational) affects how people think, what they can remember, and how they process information. This has profound implications for the conversations advisors need to have with clients and the advice clients are realistically able to absorb.
This session will introduce key trauma-informed principles tailored specifically to professionals working in the financial aspects of family breakdown. We will explore how stress and trauma shape decision-making, why some clients become avoidant or overwhelmed, and how advisors can structure interactions that reduce reactivity and increase clarity.
Participants will leave with practical, evidence-based tools for:
- Supporting dysregulated clients
- Reframing difficult questions
- Setting boundaries that preserve professional wellbeing
- Communicating complex financial information in a way that clients can navigate even in emotionally heightened states
The aim is not to turn advisors into therapists but to equip you with a framework that makes your advice more effective, humane, and sustainable.
Doris Cozma is a Divorce & Separation Coach and Trainee Therapist whose work bridges psychology, communication and the realities of family breakdown. She runs DC² Divorce Coaching, providing evidence-based and compassionate support to individuals navigating separation, as well as training for professionals working in the family justice system.
Financial Advisors’ Accreditation Q&A
Seen as the gold standard for financial professionals who wish to specialise as a family dispute resolution practitioner, this scheme recognises financial advisor members who demonstrate a high level of skill, proficiency and experience in their work. Those who have managed to attain this accreditation are fully aware of the commitment needed and are rightfully proud of their achievement. Those who aspire to it will have to dedicate significant time resources to it.
But this is a changing landscape, and we must adapt to that change, if we are to best help the families that need us.
Lead by Tom Farrell, a member of the Specialist Accreditation Committee, this session will premier changes to the scheme and facilitate a Q&A session about these changes, how they might help us adapt to the changing landscape and give some useful hints and tips to those considering accreditation.
Tom Farrell is a Resolution Accredited Financial Adviser and an assessor for the scheme. An experienced Family & Hybrid Mediator and Independent Financial Planner, he runs a specialist practice, working with people who are going through separation or divorce.
He has worked for more than 15 years as a Financial Neutral and Coach in all forms of divorce process.
He regularly trains others, both in this country and abroad and has sat on several committees with Resolution, where he is a passionate advocate for systemic practice or interdisciplinary working. He was the first IFA to sit on the Resolution National Committee, as a co-opted member.
Demystifying LTIPs and Private Equity in Divorce Settlements: A Guide for Financial Planners and Lawyers
Divorce cases involving long-term incentive plans (LTIPs) and private equity interests can be exceptionally challenging, with value often hidden in complex, illiquid, or deferred structures. This session provides a clear, practical overview of how these assets work and how to interpret them within the context of a divorce settlement. We’ll explore vesting schedules, valuation challenges, tax implications, and the common disclosure gaps that can distort negotiations. Drawing on real-world insights from high-net-worth cases, the session equips lawyers and financial planners with the tools to recognise, question, and accurately represent these assets in financial proceedings, ensuring fairer outcomes for their clients.
Ceri Griffiths is a Resolution-accredited divorce financial planner who works exclusively with women divorcing wealthy and powerful men, including CEOs and private equity partners. She brings deep expertise in long-term incentive plans (LTIPs), carried interest, and private equity structures within divorce settlements, helping clients and their advisers navigate complex disclosures and negotiate fair, well-informed outcomes in high-value, high-stakes cases.
Talking Family Law – LIVE Podcast recording: Economic Abuse, Family Law Reform, and the role of Financial Advisers
Join us as we record a live episode of Talking Family Law – the Resolution podcast. In this session our co-hosts Anita Mehta and Simon Blain are joined by Steve Hennessy and Angela Lake-Carroll as they discuss domestic abuse, including economic abuse, from the perspective of financial planners. How can financial planners identify abuse, and what can they do about it? Where are the spaces that allow domestic abuse to be perpetrated when dealing with pensions, implementation, joint and sole liabilities.
1. Please listen to: Domestic Abuse in Financial Remedy – Season 4, episode 3 and Season 4, Episode 10: LIVE from National Conference: Serious coercive control with Jane Monckton-Smith and Ruth Dodsworth;
AND
2. Please send your questions/ discussion points for the podcast to [email protected]
From Courtroom to Client: Understanding the impact of Standish vs Standish on Financial Planning
This session will unpack the recent Standish vs Standish judgment and explore its practical implications for financial advisers. We will examine the concept of matrimonialisation and how the ruling reshapes the way client assets should be assessed, documented, and planned for, and what advisers must consider to ensure their guidance remains compliant, transparent, and aligned with clients’ long-term interests.
Ria Coles is a Partner – Independent Financial Adviser at Brunel Wealth. After spending several years working in offshore investment consultancy and UK based advisory, in 2015 Ria set up her first advisory firm offering long-term financial planning services to individuals and companies.
In 2020 Ria merged her business with her now fellow partners to create Brunel Wealth. Throughout this journey her work with family lawyers as well as separating and divorcing couples developed naturally and for the last 5 years has been the almost sole focus of the planning work that she undertakes.
Ria is a proud Resolution member as well as an active participant of Bristol Family Law Solutions, an organisation set up by a dedicated group of local collaboratively trained lawyers, mediators, divorce coaches and planners.
Breaking Free (Round table discussion)
Two divorce advice specialists (Mary Waring and Phil O’Connor) who have recently sold their practices are joined by experienced ex-IFA and Mergers & Acquisitions industry expert Brian Hill. Mary and Phil will share their personal journeys, from building their presence in the divorce financial planning space over multiple decades, to making the decision to exit their regulated businesses and the ups and downs of the process.
Brian will provide a structured overview of the business sale process including alternative approaches. Having sold his own directly authorised IFA business in 2020 he now helps others sell their practices.
Mary and Phil will then discuss how they have built successful alternative divorce related services in the non-regulated space post sale, what those services are and how to charge for them.
Brian Hill is an experienced M&A adviser and former Financial Planner who understands what it takes to sell a financial advice business, because he’s done it himself, and helped dozens of others do the same.
Before launching Pathfinders, Brian co-founded and served as Managing Director of a sector consultancy, where he worked directly with firm owners preparing for succession or sale. That experience, paired with his own successful exit from a directly authorised firm, shaped his belief that the market needed a better way to sell: one built on tested processes, integrity, and seller-side alignment.
Today, Brian leads Pathfinders: the leading specialist M&A firm that supports owners of financial planning firms through their carefully managed, high-trust sales processes. He’s personally run dozens of firm and client bank sales, and is known for his clarity, commercial sense, and calm handling of high-stakes negotiations.
Phil O’Connor specialises in the financial aspects of divorce. Phil works with his clients to help them make better, more informed financial decisions on all the marital assets including pensions, investments and property. Phil assists clients, mediators and family lawyers across the UK with joint expert, single expert and neutral work. Phil has been a Resolution Accredited Independent Financial Adviser since its inception in 2007 and a Resolution IFA committee member since 2014 and helped to write the examination papers for IFA Resolution Accreditation and reaccreditation.
Mary Waring is a chartered financial planner, chartered accountant and Resolution Accredited Specialist.
She is the founder of Wealth for Women, an award-winning company, specialising in financial advice to women going through divorce, especially those who haven’t been responsible for the finances during their marriage. She supports clients through this particularly challenging time who need trustworthy expertise and guidance. She works with her clients, so they understand the options available to them based on their financial situation and know how to improve their future.
Mary was interested in joining the Duxbury Working Party since her clients are typically non-earning spouses and have been for maybe 25+ years. They are therefore unlikely to become major income earners post-divorce. The settlement they receive on divorce needs to last their lifetime.
Friday 27 February
Morning 9am to Midday
A dedicated Interactive and Dynamic Session
As well as learning from others we want YOU to contribute and have your say on
• the future of our professional niche
• the commercial realities shaping practice today
• how to price expertise with clarity and confidence
• new and emerging roles and risks
• strategies for sustainable growth over the next five years
• driving growth in professional standards
Finally, we’ll talk about practical ways we can better highlight and address financial and economic abuse with sensitivity and rigour.
Connect, learn, and strengthen your network.
If you have any queries, please contact the conference team: [email protected]
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