| Position: | Director |
| Email: | dbowen@bbvlegal.com.au |
| Practice Areas: | Family Law |
Experience:
Damien heads up the firm's Family Law section. With more than 30 years experience
as a Family lawyer, and an accredited Family Law specialist for more than 19 years,
his particular areas of practice are financial settlements and financial agreements.
Damien has many years of experience in all aspects of Family Law including negotiated
and litigated financial settlements involving property, maintenance and child support
and mediated and litigated resolution of child matters such as residence and contact
and specific issues. He also has extensive experience in pre-nuptial agreements
or cohabitation agreements for de facto couples.
Damien is able to act for clients in settling Family Law matters through the collaborative
process whereby parties agree not to go to court. Instead, with their lawyers, they
negotiate an outcome based on what is best for their family, rather than based on
their legal rights.
A new and growing area of Family Law involves surrogacy and artificial conception
procedures, in which Damien and his team have specialist expertise.
Damien grew up as the son of farming parents and worked on numerous farms in his
earlier years. He has an extensive background in, and knowledge about, farming.
Damien owns a farm on which he ran cattle until recently. Therefore, Damien has
an innate knowledge of the farming industry and has a long list of farming clients
for whom he has acted. Damien is uniquely placed to better understand the real impact
on farming businesses when family relationships deteriorate and the advice of a
Family Lawyer becomes necessary.
Between finishing school and commencing law studies Damien worked in a variety of
jobs. He worked as a bulldozer operator for an earthmoving contractor in Esperance
clearing land and building dams; as an ore sampler for a mineral exploration company
in the Hamersley Ranges; as a trade assistant to boilermakers and electricians at
Mount Newman; as a ganger on railway gangs and as a wharfie at the Fremantle Harbour.
Damien's areas of practice include:
- Collaborative Law
- Property settlements
- Company and entity restructure pursuant to Family Court Orders
- Division of superannuation
- Binding financial agreements
- Divorce
- De facto relationships
- Same-sex domestic relationships
- Spousal maintenance
- Financial settlements and agreements
- Representation in Family Court proceedings
| Qualifications: |
Bachelor of Jurisprudence (UWA)
Bachelor of Laws (UWA) |
| Admitted to Practice: |
Supreme Court of Western Australia 1977
High Court of Australia 1985 Accredited Family Law Specialist 1992 |
| Memberships: |
Law Society of Western Australia
Family Law Practitioners' Association of Western Australia Law Council of Australia (Family Law Section) |