A far superior level of subject knowledge

Dear Richard,

I am writing this letter by way of reference for how you have supported me since June 2017 when I came to you for help with my case, a case which should never have been brought to you other than for having been overnight excluded from my sons life and driven from my home on the basis of a string of false allegations, having been my sons primary carer before that. I am, or perhaps should now say I was, a moderately successful businessman, having set up X Ltd.

I sought your assistance with my case having initially been represented by [another law firm], whose advice ultimately led to the ceased contact that had been enforced on him and I by his mother, being re-enforced by court order as a result of a range of strategic false allegations made by his mother when I followed [that other law firm's] advice, took [A-name of child] into my care and made an application to the court for him to be placed in my care due to numerous concerns regarding A's well being in his mothers care, her abandonment of him, her physical health challenges and her presenting to me as suffering with Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, both of which are entirely consistent with our relationship dynamic of coercive abuse that only intensified leading up separation and ever since. I had grave concerns for A's safety, however his mother managed to persuade professionals to submit false information on her behalf and further muddy the water with very serious false allegations.

On seeking your assistance, I had prior to this undertaken a great deal of research into the mental health issues I believed my sons mother to be suffering from, and also was unhappy with the [other law firms] general approach which was reactive to the allegations being made rather than focusing on my son, who was already suffering significantly from having had me erased from his life overnight. This reactive approach only led to 2 sets of aggressive solicitors throwing stones at each other and racking up a high bill in the process, it seemed that this was a recipe for disaster and continued damage to A. The business was already suffering as a result of intense family spending over the previous years, and family finances could not afford for this case to drag on, Gregorian Emerson as a firm clearly had the type of expertise where mental health was presenting as a core issue, where other solicitors appeared to only want to have an intensive fight with the other party, and continue the blame game.

My intention was to try to deal with the case on the basis of her being an unfit mother on the grounds of this behaviour. However, Richard would not run this type of a case, and explained in great detail that doing so would not help our situation, not help our son and only escalate an already incredibly volatile situation. Richards communication with [other sides solicitor] solicitor was immediately child centred and he made repeated attempts to get the other side to focus on A so that we could resolve our issues. This approach was continually met with more and more acrimonious, blameful and threatening responses based on claims of trauma from events that never took place. This continued even after more than 50 false allegations had been proven to be false, and that number has since more than doubled to over 120 false allegations.

There were a number of times, out of sheer frustration and desperation for the nightmare to end (particularly at points where the alienation and psychological abuse of my son was at its most intense) that I wanted to confront the other side with the appalling behavioural information, but Richard counselled me repeatedly to get back to having A's needs at the centre of my thinking and at the centre of our approach. Ultimately Richard maintained his focus on the basis that it was critical for A that at some future stage his mother and I would be able to co-parent effectively, and that was proven to be right because we did co-parent effectively for nearly 3 months after 50/50 shared care was agreed. Had I not engaged Richards services, its very likely I would have based my case on my discoveries around [other sides] mental health, and her historical abusive behaviour.

With so many flash points during the course of the litigation, often over the most ludicrous and irrelevant of matters, the case could very well have gotten completely out of control, and I feel it was only Richards expertise that prevented that and ultimately drew it to a conclusion. Indeed there was a phone call that Richard assisted us both in which he went to great lengths to impress upon her how we must work in A's interests, and that means working on how we communicate with one another to avoid future upset.

I have worked with a number of lawyers and McKenzie friends, Richard however has shown a far superior level of subject knowledge in terms of family law which is only surpassed by his understanding of dispute dynamics and dispute resolution, and this is assisted further by a keen sense of integrity and plain old common sense. All of his work with me on this case has come from a reconciliatory angle, but he is firm in calling out parties who are seeking to undermine genuine efforts to simply get on with job of parenting that both [other side] and I should have been getting on with instead of this insane destructive battle, and we had repeated attempts from [other sides] legal representatives and [other side] herself to undermine efforts to parent effectively, to escalate the conflict and to prolong the time taken to resolve and get on with parenting. Richard has repeatedly attempted to get us both out of litigation, not least because he was well aware of our financial predicament from the beginning, but the other side simply would not listen to reason at any point, and if they felt they were not getting their way (even when getting their way was simply impossible to achieve and proven to be so) further litigation would follow by way of trying to force impossible outcomes into being magically possible.

I wouldn't hesitate in recommending Richard Gregorian to anyone faced with an acrimonious divorce where their rights to raise their own children are impeded through false allegations, I think that in any case where significant mental health issues and opposing lawyers fuelling an unnecessary intensification and prolonging of a dispute where not the key feature, then Richard would bring that case to a resolution very quickly and in all probability it could be settled without further court involvement. However, he dealt with it professionally based on the combative style we were faced with from the other side and I cannot logically or reasonably consider that he could have approached the case in a more considerate, appropriate and professional manner.