About Act Family Law
Ian Downing,
Partner.Solicitor and Collaborative practitioner.
Ian Downing has specialised in family law since 1984. He was a Family Law Partner with Bond Pearce, Plymouth, before setting up Act as a specialist family law practice in 1997.
Ian is a member and past Devon region Chairman of Resolution, the national organisation of family solicitors. He is a Resolution Accredited Specialist in Pensions and Cohabitation issues.
Ian is a Resolution trained collaborative law practitioner.
He is regularly included in Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession annual list of leading practitioners in the South West region. Chambers describe Ian as “a first rate family law practitioner”.
As well as advising his clients, Ian also lectures to other family lawyers on a range of family law matters, and has also co-authored various specialist family law publications.
John Hind,
Partner.Solicitor, Mediator, Collaborative practitioner.
After leaving the Army in 1989 as a Captain, John trained as a solicitor specialising in Family Law. Prior to joining Act Family Law he gained family law experience with major firms Bond Pearce, Plymouth and Paris Smith and Randall, Southampton.
John conducts complex financial cases involving companies, pensions and trusts. He also has a wealth of experience in children matters. He is on the Law Society's Family Law panel.
In 2005 John was amongst the first solicitors in England to train as a collaborative practitioner, and has since completed many successful collaborative cases.
John trained as a Family Law Mediator in 1997, since when he has run a mediation practice focussing on a wide range of Civil and Family Law matters. In 1999 he became a consultant mediator for Devon Family Solutions, gained accreditation from the Legal Services Commission and joined the Resolution panel of accredited mediators. He has carried out hundreds of Public Funded and private Family Law mediations. He was involved in a pilot project to run in-court civil and family mediation and tries to remain at the forefront of developments in alternative dispute resolution.
He is a Family Law trainer for Resolution, and is currently involved in training mediators on the Resolution Family Law foundation course. John is the Chair of Devon Resolution and is the Plymouth Collaborative POD liaison person. He is recognised in Chambers Directory to the UK Legal Profession for his Collaborative and Mediation practice.
His other interests include music and sport. He plays jazz saxophone in the Plymouth based jazz band 'In ya pocket'. He also coaches cycling to youths in a national triathlon programme. These pursuits, and work as a busy Family lawyer, keep him out of mischief.
About Act
Created in 1997 as Plymouth’s first law firm to specialise purely in family law matters, Act Family Law provides its expertise to clients throughout the South West and beyond.
The breakdown of a relationship is often traumatic. Anyone going through this process, where so much may be changing, needs more than just good legal advice. Act provides legal, mediation and collaborative skills in a friendly and professional way, helping clients to resolve family and divorce matters effectively and efficiently.
We are experienced in cases involving businesses, professional and farming matters, complex finances and pensions, and members of the Armed Forces at all levels.
Act partners have worked to obtain a wide range of specialist family law qualifications, and we continue to update and refine our skills to enable us to maintain the high standards we have set for ourselves.