Louisa Ghevaert

Education Louisa Ghevaert obtained a Batchelor of Arts Honours Degree in History (BA Hons) at the University of Bristol, before undertaking the Common Professional Entrance (CPE) and the Legal Practice Course (LPC) at the College of Law in Guildford.

Career They have worked on a series of landmark legal cases for changes and improvements to fertility, children law, and family law for families in the UK. She is the founder of specialist fertility and family law firm Louisa Ghevaert Associates.

In 2008, Ghevaert acted for British intended parents in Re X and Y (foreign surrogacy) EWHC 3030 (Fam), being the first case in UK legal history to test the law for British parents conceiving through an international commercial surrogacy arrangement in Ukraine.

In 2009 Ghevaert acted for Melanie and Robert Gladwin saving their frozen embryos from destruction, which led directly to the Department of Health issuing a change to embryo storage law in the UK for surrogate pregnancies, for which she was named The Times Lawyer of the Week.

In 2010, Ghevaert acted for British intended parents who conceived a child with a US surrogate in Re L (a minor) EWHC 3146 (Fam). The case set a precedent that the welfare of the child is decisive over the UK public policy ban of commercial surrogacy except in the clearest cases of abuse of public policy. The national media covered the outcome.

In 2011, Ghevaert obtained a parental order for a British couple whose surrogate-born child was stuck between two conflicting legal systems, stateless and parentless, following a commercial surrogacy arrangement in the Ukraine in Re IJ (a Child) EWHC 921 (Fam). The ruling affirmed the paramount welfare of the child and highlighted the legal parentage and immigration difficulties that overseas surrogacy agreements can create.

Ghevaert acted for Donna and Dean Marshall in 2011, helping them win a rare legal battle for IVF funding on the NHS against their local hospital authority. Its restrictive eligibility criteria had precluded them, determining that they were not childless because Mr. Marshall had a child from a previous relationship who lived with his former wife 200 miles away. In 2014, Ghevaert acted for the intended father in a UK surrogacy dispute about a child's care and parentage in JP v LP & Ors EWHC 595 (Fam). The legal ruling highlighted the risks of informal agreements and established a legal framework for cases where criteria for a parental order cannot be met following marital breakdown and divorce.

From 2014 to 2018, Ghevaert was a member of the cross-organizational Surrogacy UK Working Party on Surrogacy Law Reform and contributor to the report on surrogacy in the UK Myth busting and reform (2015). This informed parliamentary debate on surrogacy law reform and policy in The House of Lords in 2016 and subsequent work on reform of surrogacy law in the UK by the Law Commissions of England, Wales and Scotland from 2018 to 2023. She was part of the wife's legal team in Y v A Healthcare NHS Trust & The HFEA & Z (by his litigation friend, The Official Solicitor) EWCOP 18, a first-of-its kind legal ruling from the Court of Protection to extract and store sperm from a fatally injured man for use in posthumous fertility treatment. Ghevaert was awarded a place on The Lawyer Hot 100 List 2018 for her legal work on cases regarding the family, fertility and medical sectors. They described her "as an influential figure when it comes to ensuring fertility laws are fit for purpose in the 21st century".

Through 2018, 2019 and 2020, Ghevaert's expert legal evidence in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court resulted in further legal rulings for a woman rendered infertile following a delay in detecting cancer in smear tests and biopsies, enabling for the first time recovery of damages for commercial surrogacy, donor conception and fertility treatment in the US, XX v Whittington Hospital NHS Trust EWCA Civ 2832 and Whittington Hospital NHS Trust v XX UKSC 14.

From 2017 to 2022, Ghevaert was an expert member of the Egg Donation in the UK, Belgium and Spain: an Interdisciplinary Study (EDNA) Stakeholder Advisory Group led by Professor Nicky Hudson at the Centre for Reproduction Research (CRR) at De Montfort University in collaboration with the Bioethics Institute Ghent, in Belgium and the Consejo Superior Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) in Spain. The EDNA study was funded by the Economic & Social Research Council and looked at the future landscape of egg donation policy, practices and governance in the UK, Belgium and Spain.

In 2022, in Re X, Y and Z (Children: Parental Orders: Time Limit) EWHC 198 (Fam) Ghevaert obtained parental orders for three surrogate born children following the collapse of a US surrogacy agency, threatened deportation by Danish Authorities and criminal charges, extending the six-month legal deadline to meet the children's lifelong welfare and provide permanence and security for their care.

In 2022, Ghevaert also obtained a declaration of parentage for a woman after a 35-year search for her father using ancestry DNA testing in X v Y EWFC 77. The High Court made the legal ruling despite the biological father's refusal to undergo accredited laboratory DNA testing and highlighted the fundamental importance of identity, parentage and the re-registration of birth certificates to provide properly maintained records for individuals and the public benefit.

In 2023, Ghevaert became an expert advisory member to the 3-year research study “Reproduction in the age of genomic medicine: the emergence, commercialisation and implications of preconception expanded carrier screening (PRECAS)” led by Professor Cathy Herbrand with a team of nine researchers and a partner the Progress Educational Trust (PET) at the Centre for Reproduction Research (CRR) at De Montfort University. The PRECAS study, funded by the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), investigates the emergence of expanded carrier screening (ECS) for preconception use amongst the general population to help shape regulatory approaches to policy generation in the UK and internationally.

In 2024, in Re G v Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority EWHC 2453 (Fam) Ghevaert acted for a mother who sought posthumous use of her deceased daughter's eggs in fertility treatment with donor sperm and surrogacy. The case addressed legal and factual issues that had not previously come before the English Court, resulting in intervention by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on policy grounds. It led to a ruling refusing posthumous use absent the deceased's explicit written consent, whilst affirming for the first time legal rights for relatives such as a mother (not just a partner or spouse) to posthumously use a deceased's frozen gametes to have a baby with a surrogate provided the deceased has given written consent on a prescribed form.

Through 2024 and 2025, Ghevaert acted for a transgender man with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) in FZ v MZ & FZ v Y Council EWHC 3338 (Fam). The case tested the law for the first time in England and Wales on whether he could lawfully be registered as father on his second child's birth certificate after his wife's artificial conception with donor sperm outside of a licensed UK fertility clinic. It resulted in a ruling that he could not be registered as father or mother due to a lacuna in the law and that his only route to legal parenthood was via adoption. Simultaneously, Judicial Review proceedings were required to quash his erroneous registration as father on his first child's birth certificate, there being no statutory power to register afresh without leaving the initial registration manually struck through which risked exposing his transgender status. It also necessitated an adoption order in respect of his first child who was artificially conceived by private arrangement with donor sperm whilst he was engaged but not yet married to the mother.

Publications Ghevaert is a specialist contributor on surrogacy law in practitioner reference book The International Family Law Practice. She also contributed to the book Legal and Regulatory Risks to Patients: The UK Context.