We are happy to announce that there have been two published authors within our staff, past and present, at Gordons Partnership and both within the last year! Quite an achievement!
No Place to Lie – by Helen Garlick
Previously a well-known family lawyer/mediator, a consultant at Gordons Partnership, and author of various books and textbooks on family matters, including The Which? Guide to Divorce Helen has appeared on TV, radio and podcasts. She has worked with thousands of clients to achieve amicable outcomes on separation and divorce and has also trained thousands of lawyers in constructive talking solutions, focusing on the family’s best interests.
Helen spearheaded collaborative practice training for Resolution (First for Family Law) until 2020 and ran bespoke dispute resolution courses. She was previously chair of the management committee of One Parent Families and in June 2021 will be appointed an Ambassador of Zero Suicide Alliance (alongside Sadiq Khan).
Brought up in Yorkshire, Helen now lives in Sussex on the South Downs with her husband Tim and is a mum of three and stepmum of two. Surprisingly sober since stepping back from legal practice to focus on writing (maybe that’s no surprise at all), Helen Garlick now writes and speaks about the healing power of talking and connection via her YouTube channel, Hello! It’s Better to Talk.
NO PLACE TO LIE focuses on how her family’s secrets and their focus on keeping up appearances impacted on Helen and her sensitive younger brother David, who took his own life in a remote country mansion when he was twenty years old. No one predicted the secret that her mother would take to her grave and its revelation made everyone reassess what had really gone on.
With over fifty FIVE star reviews on Amazon, Helen’s debut memoir unravels devastating family secrets and lies. It has been hailed as “an exceptional true story of trauma, survival and hope”.
Click here to purchase your copy of No Place to Lie: Secrets Unlocked, a Promise Kept
VILNIUS 1812: GHOSTS OF NAPOLEON’S GRANDE ARMEE THROUGH THEIR ARTIFACTS – by Paul Richardson and Stephen Summerfield
Paul Richardson is an Associate Solicitor in the Residential Conveyancing department in our Guildford branch at Gordons Partnership. He graduated with a degree in law from University College London and qualified as a solicitor in 1994 and he has worked at several firms in London and Surrey. He has extensive experience in dealing with leasehold and freehold property transactions.
With an intrepid barrister friend Paul visited Vilnius in February 2005, soon after the discovery of the mass graves. Vilnius was an enchanting hidden gem where they saw the remains, an exhibition, and met the officials involved. Ken Trotman specialist military history publishers produced Paul’s first book regarding their research in 2008, and a few lectures in London followed, and a guided tour of the sites for a battlefield company in 2011.
In 2020 Paul was prompted to revise and enlarge the story with more detail, memoirs and illustrations, and co-authoring with Stephen Summerfield who is hugely experienced and knowledgeable (with numerous military titles published). They finished in April 2021 and have decided to publish another follow-up book in 2021/2 on the attrition of the 1812 campaign generally, which was truly horrific. This came from the research into the units at Vilnius (where the graves were found) but spilled over into the whole campaign from summer to winter 1812/13.
Vilnius 1812 results in a detailed exploration of artifacts that have survived in the massed graves of the victims of the retreat from Moscow. The research involved gives a greater understanding to the fate of the army.
Click here to purchase your copy of Vilnius 1812: Ghosts of Napoleon’s Grande Armee through their Artifacts