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Nigel Shepherd

Nigel Shepherd
  • Job title: Member of the Governing Body since September 2018
  • Department(s): Governance
  • Specialism(s): Governance, Governors

Nigel is a solicitor of over 40 years experience, specialising in family law work. He is a consultant with national firm Mills & Reeve and was their national Head of Family Law between 2016 and 2020. He now focuses primarily on his work as a family arbitrator and evaluator in financial cases and supporting various projects and initiatives for the firm, based primarily in their Manchester office. He is also an adviser to litigation funding business, Ampla Finance.

Throughout his long career Nigel has been committed to helping those experiencing family breakdown to find an agreed, constructive solution to the issues they face with a particular focus on how this benefits children. He is a Life Member of the family justice organisation, Resolution, and is the only person to have been its national chair twice, first between 1995 and 1997 and then most recently 2016-2018. He campaigned for many years for a change in the divorce laws so that the ability to apportion blame in the process is removed and conflict, particularly for children, is reduced. This resulted in his firm representing Resolution pro bono in the Supreme Court case of Owens in 2018 and the campaigning finally led to the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act which finally came into effect in April 2022 . This provides for a no fault divorce process and has already started to make the process kinder and more constructive for thousands of couples and their children.

In 2018 Nigel was given honorary life membership of Resolution, in 2019 was honoured with the Cornwell Award for Outstanding Contribution to Family Law and in 2022 the Lifetime Achievement Award from Manchester Law Society.

Nigel is passionate about music. His tastes range from Beethoven to Bowie and Zappa to Zauberflöte! He plays piano but can only dream of reaching the standards he experiences whenever he hears Chethams’ students play. He did however write the music that his elder daughter came down the aisle to at her wedding, with his original composition being recorded on the former Director of Music’s piano and then rearranged for quartet by a Year 10 student at the school. Nigel also featured years ago on a Radio 1 session when his brother’s band recorded at the famous Strawberry Studios in Stockport. He was entrusted with backing handclaps. Rock and roll!