The Dream Team

For over 20 years, Viberts has been offering a premium service for family law clients. It has become the ‘go to  firm’ for the whole range of family law services in Jersey. Since 2000, Advocate Rose Colley has been involved  in many of the Island’s high profile divorce and children cases. Rose remains a formidable force in the legal profession in Jersey having been at the forefront of campaigns, for example, to allow same sex marriage, give greater rights to cohabiting couples and to highlight crucial issues where the States of Jersey have been slow in implementing needed reform. As part of the Vibert’s Family Law team, Alexandra Cohen represents the future of family law in Jersey, and she has worked with Rose for the past 8 plus years both through her qualification as an English Solicitor and a Jersey Advocate. Together Rose and Alexandra represent an amazing team.

Rose has always seen the importance of encouraging other bright like-minded lawyers to become involved in family law. She now works closely with Advocate Alexandra Cohen. Alexandra represents the future of family law in Jersey, and she has worked with Rose for the past 8 plus years both through her qualification as an English Solicitor and a Jersey Advocate.

Together Rose and Alexandra represent an amazing team and have built a reputation for being fearless, superb on technical detail and above all bring to their cases a clear strategic vision. Many clients refer to Rose and Alexandra as the ‘dream team’ of family lawyers. A ‘dream team’ of course is a team of individuals who are perceived as a perfect combination and who are considered to be the best at what they do.

Many family lawyers attempt to do the best for their clients, but Rose and Alexandra are unique in Jersey in that they have worked closely together for many years and who have a very rare combination of skills. Rose has many years of experience, is highly empathetic to her client’s needs and always has a focus on the strategic goals for them. Alexandra has an amazing eye for detail at the same time as being tenacious and always seeking the best result for her clients. She also has something that is extremely rare amongst family lawyers in that she has a brilliant ability to deal with complex figures which makes her ideal to deal with complex financial cases. 

In the legal directory, The Legal 500 they are quoted as being, “The best family lawyers in Jersey. They have everything in spades: the experience; the individuals; the resources; the judgement, and, this means that they are always able to hold their own from the smallest contact dispute to the biggest billionaire divorce.”

The Viberts ‘dream team’ are not only fearless in court if that is where the case ends up, but they are big proponents of settling cases outside of court whether this be through negotiation or an ADR process. 

The ‘dream team’ of course could not function without a great team of legal assistants and administrators around them in particular Jonny Bernardino, April Hargreaves, Lara Channing, India Price and Saoirse Barette.

The Viberts family team will know the best ways of obtaining the client’s objectives in the short, medium, and long term and will strive to always achieve this. The family team at Viberts are top tier in the Legal Directory, The Legal 500. One of the testimonials stated, “I would always recommend Viberts to a client looking for a Jersey lawyer. The team are always bright, very hard-working and give great advice. From a barrister’s perspective they are a dream to work with.” 

Rose Colley

Partner | Advocate

Rose read political science at Aberystwyth University and after serving her Articles (as a traineeship was then called) in Local Government, qualified as an English Solicitor in 1980. She then lectured in law for 6 years and entered private practice with offices in London and North Kent. Rose moved to Jersey in 1997 and re-qualified as a Jersey Advocate in October 1999. She then joined Viberts in 2000 where she became head of the family law team and quickly built up the reputation for Viberts being the ‘go-to firm’ for family law in Jersey. 

Rose has been involved in many of the Island’s landmark family cases over many years and now practices all across the spectrum of family law from high-net-worth financial disputes to children public law care cases. 

In addition, Rose has always been keen to be involved in the wider legal profession in Jersey and is currently President of the Jersey Law Society being the first female to hold this position.

Rose is recognised as a ‘leading individual’ by Legal 500 UK 2023 and is described as, “Incredibly friendly and committed”. She is also noted as, “The best known and most respected family lawyer in Jersey and with good reason.”

Alexandra Cohen

Associate | Advocate

Alexandra studied law at Newcastle University before joining the family law team at Viberts in September 2015.  She is qualified as an English Solicitor and was sworn in as a Jersey Advocate in April 2023. Since her swearing in, Alexandra has been appearing regularly in court. Alexandra is an associate and is now responsible for training the department’s junior lawyers. 

Alexandra works on all areas of family law. She specialises in complex and/or high net worth divorces given her ability with figures and her extraordinary care, guidance and compassion towards clients. She has attention to detail but also the ability to look at the bigger picture to avoid arguing over issues that do not have a significant impact on the outcome of a case. 

Alexandra also has experience in private children’s proceedings as well as other family matters for unmarried parties.

Alexandra is recognised as a ‘Key Lawyer’ by the Legal 500 UK 2023 edition. Alexandra was noted to “get very good work and works incredibly hard to do the best by her clients”. Alexandra always has her client’s best interests at the forefront of the work that she does.