Jessica Woodhouse

Jessica has over six years’ experience in wills and estates specialising in contested estates, probate and administration, complex estate administration, and estate planning. 

Admitted to practise in 2019, Jessica graduated from the University of New South Wales with First Class Honours. Jessica was awarded the UNSW Law Dean’s List of Excellence in Academic Performance for achieving 1st place in Succession Law.

Jessica is passionate about helping clients navigate complex legal issues and achieve a resolution efficiently and cost-effectively. She is committed to providing practical, solution-focused advice tailored to each client’s unique circumstances.

 

Qualifications/Memberships

• Bachelor of Arts (with distinction) and Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) (University of New South Wales)

 

What Jessica’s clients say

I want to thank you for your guidance and professionalism as you steered me through the legal requirements of my complex situation. It was very confronting for me on so many levels but I am grateful and realise I am most fortunate. Your services were excellent and I feel reassured that no stone has been left unturned. It was important to me that we handled everything fairly and legally.

- Private client

A word from Jessica

Many of our clients have never interacted with lawyers or complex legal issues before engaging us. I enjoy guiding clients through what can be a difficult and emotional process with patience and compassion.

 

Career highlights

• Successfully obtaining injunctions against a purported carer of a vulnerable elderly woman suffering from advanced dementia in circumstances where the “carer” was misappropriating the woman’s funds and preventing her family from visiting her.

• Assisting the step-son of the deceased, who was acting as administrator of an estate as power of attorney for his incapacitated mother, in defending five separate family provision claims brought by the estranged adult children of the deceased, including one where the paternity of the child was in dispute.

• Guiding an independent Court-appointed administrator through a complex and protracted estate administration process and assisting the client to finalise the administration, including entering into a Deed of Release & Indemnity with the beneficiaries.

• Successfully obtaining summary dismissal of a family provision claim brought by a sibling of the deceased.

 

Specific areas of focus

• Contested estate litigation, including family provision claims, challenges to the validity of wills, applications for judicial advice, construction of wills, and other estate disputes.

• Uncontested applications to the Supreme Court for a grant of probate or letters of administration.

• Estate administration, including advising both executors/administrators and beneficiaries.

• Protected estates where a person has lost mental capacity to make decisions for themselves.

• Estate planning and other related issues.