Organised by Cooley Family Office and supported by the AALCO Hong Kong Regional Arbitration Centre, the four-day programme will be held at the Former French Mission Building in Central. It brings together lawyers, mediators, financial neutrals, family counsellors and other professionals advising ultra-high-net-worth families, family offices and family businesses.
The programme addresses a challenge that lies at the heart of private-client work: preserving relationships while resolving disputes about wealth. Family conflict can arise around trusts, succession, inheritance, probate, family businesses and financial arrangements. If left unmanaged, those disputes can move quickly from disagreement to litigation, placing both family harmony and long-term wealth at risk.
FOMCP introduces a structured, interdisciplinary approach to addressing those issues at an earlier stage. Its focus is not simply on reaching a settlement. It is on helping families and their advisers manage complex conversations, understand the financial and emotional dimensions of a dispute, and develop durable solutions before positions become entrenched.
The training will cover mediation and collaborative-practice tools relevant to trusts, estates and succession, probate and inheritance matters, wealth structuring and financial conflict. The international training team includes collaborative-practice lawyer Zinta Harris, mediator and family-dispute-resolution practitioner Anne Marie Rice, family-law specialist and mediator Debbie Clinch, and Hong Kong financial neutral and family mediator Ann Cooley.
The programme is particularly timely. Cooley Family Office has noted that Asia is experiencing a significant intergenerational transfer of family wealth, placing succession planning, governance and dispute resolution firmly on the agenda for families and their professional advisers. As family structures, business interests and asset holdings become increasingly international, legal solutions alone may not be sufficient. Families also need processes that allow them to discuss competing expectations with privacy, care and professional rigour.
Hugill & Ip’s sponsorship reflects the firm’s commitment to thoughtful, client-centred solutions across private client, family, dispute resolution and real estate matters. Mediation and collaborative practice can play a valuable role alongside legal advice, particularly where the objective is to protect both a family’s assets and the relationships that give those assets their meaning.
