Sarah Holt (Pupil)

Practice Overview

Sarah commenced her family pupillage in January 2026 under the supervision of Zosia Keniston and Katherine MacDonald.

Sarah will have a comprehensive family law practice. During her First Six, Sarah will be gaining experience in a wide range of cases within Chambers’ specialisms – with a specific focus on:

Children (Private Law): child arrangements; domestic and sexual abuse allegations including allegations of coercive and controlling behaviour; parental alienation; intractable contact disputes; internal and international relocation issues.

Children (Public Law): high-risk cases involving significant safeguarding concerns including emotional harm, neglect, substance abuse, cognitive difficulties, capacity issues, and domestic abuse; Non-Accidental Injury; Factitious Induced Illness; complex sexual abuse cases; contested placement applications involving adoption, residential placements, and secure units; international care cases; Forced Marriage and Female Genital Mutilation.

Family Law Act: Non-Molestation Injunctions and Occupation Orders.

Finances: Financial Remedies on Divorce; Overseas assets and liabilities; Cohabitation disputes; Inheritance Act 1975; Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989.

Prior to her legal career, Sarah spent five years living in Italy where she studied the Italian language and worked as a Reception teacher, honing her communication skills and developing a deep understanding of children’s needs and developmental stages.

Upon returning to the UK, Sarah supported herself through her legal studies by clerking in Chambers for busy Family and Civil teams. As part of her LLM, Sarah was involved in projects to advise and represent litigants in person in private child proceedings on a pro bono basis. She would regularly meet with clients to advise in conference, successfully steering clients to good outcomes in court.

In the lead up to commencing pupillage, Sarah worked as a paralegal in the Family and Divorce department at Stewarts a prestigious London firm. She assisted on complex financial cases for ultra-high net worth clients and became adept at handling matters involving substantial assets and intricate financial structures. Sarah was also heavily involved with the children team, working on cases involving Schedule 1 applications, child arrangements, jurisdictional disputes, international abduction and proceedings featuring allegations of substance abuse and domestic abuse. Most recently Sarah played a key role in a complex private child matter, involving multiple allegations of child sexual abuse against the applicant father. Within a three-month period Sarah assisted the team to prepare for an expedited 5-day Fact Finding Hearing, at which they successfully secured findings of repeated false allegations made by the respondent mother.

Outside of work life, Sarah maintains an active lifestyle as an avid netball player and long-distance runner (3 marathons and counting).