Naomi Wiseman is a specialist family barrister with a diverse portfolio of public, private and international children law cases. Naomi represents parents, children (through their Children’s Guardians) and local authorities in public law proceedings and parents and Rule 16.4 Guardians in private law cases including child abduction, wrongful removal and stranded spouse cases.
She has a particular interest in child rights and often provides expert commentary for national broadcasters, including the BBC and in the national press on key issues surrounding this important subject. She was instrumental in the campaign to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 and end child marriage in England and Wales (Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022 and was nominated in the category of Junior Barrister of the Year at the Family Law Awards 2022 for this work.
Naomi frequently gives lectures on a diverse range of family law topics and was a visiting fellow at the Cambridge Family Law Centre at the University of Cambridge in 2020. She has an ongoing relationship with the law faculty and provides guest lectures at the university. Naomi has been published in the Family Law Journal with articles on FGM, forced and child marriage and revocation of adoption and in the International Family Law Journal focussing on the use of the wardship jurisdiction for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
She has been ranked in Chambers & Partners’ Bar Guide over many years for both Children Law and Matrimonial Finance.
Prior to practising as a barrister, Naomi worked in a range of roles in Westminster and spent time on the Obama campaign in North Carolina in 2008. She worked as a policy advisor for a leading children’s charity, the National Children’s Bureau and ran the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children.