Law firm expands services to include advice on fertility treatment

The growing needs of ‘non-traditional’ families has prompted law firm Birketts to launch a ‘Modern Families’ service to provide legal advice beyond the realms of conventional family law.
Having recently opened an office in Bristol, Birketts has widened its practice to include specialist advice on fertility treatment, adoption, surrogacy, and sperm/egg donation.
Surrogacy has hit the headlines recently with Italy banning couples from travelling abroad for surrogacy and former Olympic sailor Sir Ben Ainslie and his partner publicly opening up about their experiences of surrogacy with a surrogate in California.
Jennifer Headon, head of the international family team at Birketts, said: “Navigating the law on matters that affect modern families here in the UK, but also on a cross-border basis, goes far beyond the realms of just family law. There can be immigration, employment and private wealth considerations that need to be factored into those growing their families via contemporary methods, such as surrogacy, adoption and so on.”
Recent figures show that modern families are on the rise. The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that in 2022, there were 167,000 same sex married couples in England & Wales, up from 26,000 in 2015. Civil partnerships have also increased from 120,000 in 2012 to 222,000 in 2022, while UK surrogacies quadrupled between 2011 and 2020.