Hilary Lennox

Hilary Lennox

Year of Call: 2008
Email Address: [email protected]
Telephone: 020 7583 8055

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Clerks Details

  • Clerk Name: Robert Leonard
  • Clerk Telephone: 01202 249898
  • Clerk Email: [email protected]

Overview

Hilary Lennox is a Leading Junior at 3PB Barristers, London and is admitted to practise at the Bars of England and Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland. She worked at a law firm in New York and with the Wisconsin Innocence Project in the United States.

Hilary has a well-established practice in international human rights and family law, with particular expertise in complex cross-border family disputes. She is regularly instructed in international child abduction proceedings involving both Hague Convention and non-Hague Convention jurisdictions as well as jurisdictional disputes, international relocation cases and cross-border child protection matters. Her recent work has involved cases concerning Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Spain, South Africa, the United States, Ireland, India, Australia, Nigeria and Liberia.

Hilary practised exclusively at the Irish Bar for five years. She regularly advises local authorities and other public bodies on the placement of children in Ireland and on cross-border issues arising between the UK and Ireland.

She is instructed in Forced Marriage and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) proceedings on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service, parents and children most recently in cases involving Libya and Afghanistan.

Hilary has acted in proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights and spent six months working on the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

Hilary is a regular conference speaker and delivers seminars and webinars on international family law, including child protection and cross-border judicial cooperation. She provides continuing professional development (CPD) training to solicitors, barristers, social workers, government officials and international law firms in the UK and internationally.

In collaboration with University House, she designed and delivered an intensive three-month family law course for lawyers from six leading international law firms in London in support of its Family Law and Domestic Violence Clinic. Participating firms included Shearman & Sterling LLP, Skadden, Reed Smith LLP, Ropes & Gray LLP, Travers Smith LLP and Gibson Dunn.

Based in London, Hilary undertakes consultancy assignments worldwide and regularly travels to Ireland, Geneva, New York and other international centres.

Expertise

  • Family
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    International Family

    Child Abduction

    Hilary Lennox is regularly instructed in international child abduction (Hague and non-Hague), child relocation, international jurisdictional and contact issues, forced marriage and FGM before the High Court.

    Hilary has served on the executive committee for the Child Abduction Lawyers Association (CALA) for the past 5 years.

    Cases

    Manchester City Council v D [2021] EWHC 1191 (Fam)

    IJ V S - RCJ – Forced Marriage application return order, FMPO and FGMPO (Instructed by Met Police)

    2018 SH v DS - Child abduction Ireland, representing mother

    2018 MU v NR - Child abduction Ireland

    IJ V KP - RCJ - Forced Marriage application Somalia

    ZM v MB - Contempt of court proceedings – Irish clients, Financial Remedy Enforcement

    TB v EZ - RCJ – Family Division - Libya, Child abduction, Contempt of Court, attracted a lot of media attention

    WB v JDL - RCJ, Child abduction, South Africa

    NHD v ND - Child abduction, India, represented father. Children were allowed to stay in India with father

    VHJ v ASS - International relocation Tanzania

    Children 

    Hilary represents local authorities and provides advice involving care and placement proceedings, Article 15 Brussels II revised transfers of international families most recently in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Ireland. She represents parents, guardians, intervenors as well as the Met Police in cases involving children who have suffered long term neglect and sexual abuse.

    Cases

    NCC v RS & CS - Acute Life Threatening Episode (ALTE) representing father
    LBKC v RR & NR - Non Accidental Injury representing mother (instructed by Dawson Cornwell)
    Kent CC v SA & Ors - (Acting for LA) seeking to locate children in Czech Republic, seeking port alerts on UK Borders and instruction of CFAB
    Luton BC V AF & Ors - RCJ – (ISIS case, Syria, Instructed by Bindmans LLP)
    LBTH v (Acting for LA) - S.20 secure accommodation in Scotland
    Kent CC V K & Ors - S.9 JUDGE (GERMANY) seeking to place children in Germany

    Hilary also receives instructions and lectures in Schedule 1 Children Act maintenance applications for unmarried parents.

    Cases

    JE v LE - relocation to Sweden
    TP v CN - appointment of guardian
    SES v SS - Final hearing

    Matrimonial Finance

    Hilary acts for a wide range of matrimonial financial clients in particular high net-worth as well as modest clients with complex financial arrangements. Some cases involve large property portfolios in several countries including USA, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, Portugal and India.

    Cases

    HPR v PRR - Assets in India
    W v W - Final hearing assets in Ireland
    AT v RT - Final hearing
    MJM v JM - Final hearing representing member of Nigerian government with assets in Nigeria.

  • Administrative and Public Law
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    International Human Rights Law

    Hilary Lennox has an in depth knowledge of human rights abuses in many countries. In her capacity as a Human Rights lawyer in Ireland, Hilary represented clients in complex and extensive litigation relating to victims of child abuse in Irish Reformatory and Industrial Schools operated by the Catholic Church. She conducted cases before the High Court in Ireland representing men who were abused as children in these institutions.

    Most recently she was involved in the investigation and victim reporting of 500 women survivors resident in the Magdalen Laundries. She personally dealt with 20 women whom received compensation in the sum of €100,000 euros each. She is currently instructed in two cases where day pupils were subjected to child abuse in state schools and are now suing the Irish government.

    The Joint-Head of the International Team at her former chambers, Hilary has also worked in a law firm in New York and also with the Innocence Project in Wisconsin.

    Hilary was selected by the Bar Council of Ireland out of 80 applicants to work with the Innocence Project, USA led by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. The Innocence Project is a non-profit legal organisation that is committed to exonerating wrongly convicted people primarily but not exclusively through the use of post conviction DNA testing. She worked on several cases including drafting a direct appeal to the State of Wisconsin Court of Appeals District IV and drafting post conviction motions in murder and arson cases.

     

  • Court of Protection
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    Hilary successfully represented the family of a client (22) in the Court of Protection. He was seriously injured and left in a permanent vegetative state arising from an accident on a Russian Oligarch’s yacht in the Mediterranean. His family as well as solicitors were court appointed deputies in both financial and property affairs and personal welfare. She is also involved in the ongoing international personal injury claim. Media here.

  • Recommendations

    "Hilary is tenacious and thorough." Legal 500 UK Bar 2026/Children and Domestic Violence/London Bar

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