Carolina Marín Pedreño

Lawyer

at Dawson Cornwell

+44 (0)20 7242 2556

London

United Kingdom

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Carolina is a partner at Dawson Cornwell and Head of the Children Department; the only firm/department in the country to be awarded the highest ranking as Band 1 by Chambers & Partners for Children: Cross Border Disputes.

Described by sources as “absolutely superb”, Carolina is an award winning “International Lawyer of the Year” and The Times “Lawyer of the Week”. Consistently ranked by Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500, she is highly sought after as “one of the foremost international children lawyers”, acting for high net worth individuals and the publicly funded alike.

Her specialisms include child abduction, registration and enforcement of foreign contact orders, leave to remove, residence, contact and public law cases. She is a Resolution Accredited Specialist in Child Abduction and Children Law – disputes between parents or relatives.

Carolina's speaks Spanish, English and Italian.

Subsidized legal aid is possible

Relevant experiences and positions

Carolina is the elected Vice President of the International Academy of Family Lawyers, President of the Human Rights Commission of the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA), Vice President of the UIA’s Family Commission, Vice President of AIJUDEFA, the Association of Spanish speaking family lawyers based in Chile and the former President of the Westminster & Holborn Law Society. She is a member of the International Committee of Resolution and co-chair of the European Family Justice Observatory.

As a dual qualified Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and Spanish Abogado, she is also Head of the firm’s Spanish Desk. She is the elected Executive member for international affairs of the Bar Association of Murcia and Founder and Secretary of the Spanish Association of Collaborative Lawyers. In 2016, she participated, at the request of the Spanish Judicial Council, in the training of the Spanish Judiciary in international family law.

Carolina has a degree in law from the University of Murcia, Spain and studied international family law at the Università degli Studi Magna Græcia, Italy on a European Commission “Erasmus” scholarship. She joined Dawson Cornwell in 2003 having won a second European Commission scholarship and qualified as a European Lawyer in this jurisdiction in 2004.

Carolina is a frequent lecturer and author on family law and has been interviewed by the press on many occasions. She has acted in many of the leading cases in the field of international children law, including cases in the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights.

Some personal questions

When did you first handle a child abduction case?
2003

What makes a child abduction case different from other cases?
The application of an international treaty differs within all the signatory contracting states. Our role as lawyers for consistency in the practice makes it a professional challenge.

Which cases are you most concerned with?
Wrongful removal from Hague and Non-Hague signatory contracting States.

How do you ensure good cooperation with the parent in a child abduction case?
Constant communication including outside working hours because of the importance of time in this kind of work.

Do you advice parents to file criminal charges in case of child abduction?
It depends on which countries are involved in the case as it can have very different consequences.

What are the complicated aspects of criminal cases concerning child abduction?
Some jurisdictions do not criminalise wrongful retentions

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