header-logo header-logo

Birketts—Will MacFarlane & Sarah Dodds

24 November 2025
Categories: Movers & Shakers , Profession
printer mail-detail
Family team expands with double appointment in Bristol office

Birketts has expanded its presence in Bristol with the appointment of two highly experienced family law specialists— partner Will MacFarlane and senior associate Sarah Dodds—marking the launch of its new family team in the city. The hires further strengthen the firm’s growing national family law practice.

With 17 years of post-qualification experience, Will MacFarlane advises high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients on both domestic and international family matters. His practice focuses on complex financial claims, cohabitation issues and nuptial agreements. He is ranked in the Chambers and Partners Ultra High Net Worth category and recommended in both the Spear’s Family Lawyer Index and The Legal 500.

Senior associate Sarah Dodds brings over a decade of experience advising on all aspects of relationship breakdown, with particular expertise in complex and high-conflict child arrangements. A trained collaborative solicitor, she is also recognised in the Spear’s Family Lawyer Index and has a strong interest in legal issues around modern families and family creation.

Commenting on the appointments, Katie Beaven, partner and head of the family team, said the firm was ‘thrilled to welcome Will and Sarah to launch our family team in Bristol’. She added that their ‘elite experience and commitment to growing their practice in the south west make them outstanding additions’. Will MacFarlane said he was ‘excited to return to the city where I trained nearly twenty years ago’, while Sarah Dodds said Birketts’ ‘collaborative culture really stood out’ and that she was ‘looking forward to working with the growing team in Bristol’.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Clyde & Co—Sian Langer & Gemma Parker

Clyde & Co—Sian Langer & Gemma Parker

Firm strengthens catastrophic injury capability with partner promotions

DWF—Dean Gormley

DWF—Dean Gormley

Finance and restructuring team offering expands in Manchester with partner hire

Taylor Rose—Vicki Maflin

Taylor Rose—Vicki Maflin

Firm announces appointment of head of remortgage

NEWS
From gender-critical speech to notice periods and incapability dismissals, employment law continues to turn on fine distinctions. In his latest employment law brief for NLJ, Ian Smith of Norwich Law School reviews a cluster of recent decisions, led by Bailey v Stonewall, where the Court of Appeal clarified the limits of third-party liability under the Equality Act
Non-molestation orders are meant to be the frontline defence against domestic abuse, yet their enforcement often falls short. Writing in NLJ this week, Jeni Kavanagh, Jessica Mortimer and Oliver Kavanagh analyse why the criminalisation of breach has failed to deliver consistent protection
Assisted dying remains one of the most fraught fault lines in English law, where compassion and criminal liability sit uncomfortably close. Writing in NLJ this week, Julie Gowland and Barny Croft of Birketts examine how acts motivated by care—booking travel, completing paperwork, or offering emotional support—can still fall within the wide reach of the Suicide Act 1961
The long-awaited Getty Images v Stability AI judgment arrived at the end of last year—but not with the seismic impact many expected. In this week's issue of NLJ, experts from Arnold & Porter dissect a ruling that is ‘historic’ yet tightly confined
The UK Supreme Court may be deciding fewer cases, but its impact in 2025 was anything but muted. In this week's NLJ, Professor Emeritus Brice Dickson of Queen’s University Belfast reviews a year marked by historically low output, a striking rise in jointly authored judgments, and a continued decline in dissent. High-profile rulings on biological sex under the Equality Act, public access to Dartmoor, and fairness in sexual offence trials ensured the court’s voice carried far beyond the Strand
back-to-top-scroll