Edward Cooke Family Law is back as Festival of Chichester principal sponsor

After years of involvement with the festival, the firm became principal sponsor for the 2025 festival – and have confirmed that they are back again this year.

Edward, a long-standing supporter of the festival, has performed at a number of events at the festival over the past few years.

“It has been five years now that we have supported the festival and we were principal sponsor last year. I feel so passionately the festival does such great work locally in terms of cultural exchange and in terms of stimulating great cultural activity. It is a great grassroots festival and we are lucky to be involved in something that is so much in the community and that does so much positive work for so many people.

“I have performed in the festival a number of times over the years and I still remember the old festival back in the 1980s. It was very sad when it came to an end but I feel very passionate about supporting the not-so-new-now (successor festival) the Festival of Chichester. The people that set it up have worked so hard over the years and it deserves the support of everybody. It is fantastic for Chichester to have a festival like this.”

Edward Cooke Family Law (www.ecfamilylaw.co.uk) is a specialist firm of divorce solicitors, family lawyers and mediators in West Sussex, East Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, with offices in Chichester, Brighton and Farnham.

Edward sees parallels between the work that the law firm does and the work that the festival does in terms of strengthening and improving our community.

“It's so important that Chichester with its rich history and very rich cultural history can bring all these events together. There are so many great institutions involved in the festival, the cathedral and the theatre groups and the dance groups and Pallant House and all the other organisations.

“But it's so important every year to bring them together and to have a festival that really embraces the whole community. It is so important to celebrate our cultural diversity in the city and in the area. This is a way of doing that and giving people civic pride and bringing enjoyment to people while recognising their talents.

“It is great to be involved. I am not a professional musician but I love music and I love to be able to perform and the great thing about the festival is that anybody can put something on within reason. It's a platform and that's what's so exciting. You don't know what you are going to discover. There are some really high-quality professional events but there are also some great non-professional events. I love going along to the festival. I really enjoy events in on St John’s Chapel which is a wonderful venue. It's a great place for chamber music or jazz concerts. Chichester really does have a lovely array of venues.

“And the reason that we wanted to become principal sponsor is because we passionately want to support the festival. We want to see it continue to go from strength to strength. As a local firm we are rooted in the community and we support lots of local organisations. By being involved as the main sponsor we hope that people will become more aware of our services but really we just want to see the festival continue to flourish and continue to grow.”

As for Edward Cooke Family Law: “We are committed to supporting our clients in reaching constructive solutions upon divorce and separation. through mediation, collaborative law, arbitration and other non-court dispute resolution methods, including Consensus, our one-couple, one lawyer approach. We however recognise that sometimes court proceedings are unavoidable and as a full family law service, we are hugely experienced in representing clients in all forms of family court proceedings.”