Bridget Garrood

Background and expertise

Bridget is a specialist in complex divorce and cohabitation cases and LGBT+ family law. She is a former Chair of the Devon Region of Resolution and is a current committee member for The Law Society’s LGBT+ Lawyers Division. Bridget is well liked and highly respected among her peers and regularly acts for clients from London and the Home Counties as well as the South West.

Bridget qualified as a solicitor in 1994 after spending several years working for Citizens Advice as a debt counsellor and welfare rights officer.

Bridget  has practiced family law in Exeter throughout her career, and was a partner at Boutique Exeter firm Cartridges Law for 20 years. Bridget is also a former Chair of Devon Resolution, and specialises in the financial, property and pension aspects of family breakdown, and the tricky legal minefield surrounding cohabitation. In 2001, Bridget was one of the first solicitors to be accredited by Resolution as a Specialist Family Lawyer with expertise in Pensions on Divorce, and in Cohabitation.

Bridget is an advocate for the benefits of  trauma-informed legal practice, which recognises the benefits for clients and their lawyers of reflective practice. This underpins her values as a family lawyer which have been firmly rooted in the  Resolution Code of Conduct since 1992, enhanced by her training and practice as a Collaborative Family Lawyer since 2005. She is a member of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals.

Bridget has represented clients from all over the world, but is based in the South West of England as a part time Consultant Solicitor with Walker Family Law.

Amongst her career highlights, Bridget lists her work for her LGBQT+ clients, including her niche legal expertise working with trans and non-binary clients, plus her contribution to the Civil Partnership Act of 2004 as part of a working party of the Lesbian and Gay Lawyers Association (LAGLA). In 2019 Bridget was honoured to join the UK and Ireland LGBT+ Family Law Institute, part of a global network of leading family lawyers who are often at the cutting edge of LGBT+ family law issues including fertility, children law, matrimonial law, finances and gender identity. As a  committee alumni member of The Law Society’s LGBTQ+ solicitors Network , Bridget contributes to their blogs, events and podcasts. She supports and mentors aspiring and fellow lawyers at all stages of their career journeys as  from trainee solicitor or pupil barrister, to circuit judges. 

In 2020 she won the Debbie Hill Award for the Exceptional Support of Students for being instrumental in setting up the LGBTQ+ and Law University of Exeter student project . 

She shares with fellow lawyers and others, her expertise not only in family law, (particularly as this  affects  LGBQT+ clients) but also in  wellbeing, diversity and inclusion for the legal profession. 

This includes her work as a Reflective Practice Family Law Supervisor, supporting fellow family lawyers to practice more sustainably, based on the premise that we are best able to help our clients if we  are well supported too. This model of supervision acknowledges the emotional health of not just the families we work with,  but also of the professionals helping them, as being central to the process of transforming conflict at a deep and enduring level.

Bridget was awarded her FLiP Faculty Diploma in Family Law Supervision in 2022 by the training arm of Family Law in Partnership. This qualifies her to offer to family law firms, chambers and individuals a reflective, independent, confidential one to one space, which supports the lawyer in turn to support the effective care of their family law clients, whether as lawyers or other key workers within the Family Justice system, from judges to paralegals. 

Key Services