“IF THE chemistry’s not right, why would you give that lawyer your £20 million divorce settlement to negotiate?” It’s a fair question — even if the client’s assets are nearer £1 million and more Middlesbrough than Mayfair.
The person asking it is Helen Ward, Manches’ partner, a top- drawer family solicitor and wife of Lord Justice Ward. Operating within the “magic circle” of matrimonial lawyers, her client list has included Paloma Picasso, Lord Lloyd-Webber, Ian McEwan and David Seaman. Winning the client’s trust is at the core of her own approach. “
It’s essential that clients feel they are listened to. They must have confidence. Divorce is a discretionary area of the law. It’s haute couture — a case of measuring up the client as best you can. You start by getting to know them. You need to establish a rapport so that you can give unpalatable advice, which you have to quite often.”
But instead of firing off angry letters, Ward tries to send everyone who comes to see her away for three months. “I recommend 60 per cent of my clients see a therapist for support. Divorce is not something you threaten. You don’t issue a divorce petition as a weapon. I’m old and ugly, and I can see it coming when clients try to use me.”
Sometimes, she concedes, it is necessary to issue a petition quickly. “But more often it’s best to unravel any unhappiness before focusing on the divorce.” Therapy over, the word settlement looms large. “I don’t like clients instructing me to run up huge bills, to get nowhere, to prejudice their interests and possibly harm the ultimate outcome. I always push them away from litigation and towards settlement.
The best ammunition against litigation is to tell the client about the damage that they are going to do to their family. Divorce should carry a health warning: it damages children and it damages relationships.”
It pays off with her rivals. “I enjoy cutting deals with Helen — she’s very bright, tenacious and very caring of her clients.” The tribute comes from Diana Parker, chairman of Withers LLP, an international firm at the very top of the family law tree. “Diana is wise and funny,” Ward says in mutual admiration. “She’s incredibly clever, a class performer who brings intellectual rigour to the analysis. We recently settled a huge case in a month. We could have been at it for two years.”
Sixty minutes with the “brilliant, thoughtful and engaging” Parker provides proof of her forensic intelligence: a Cambridge double first; her pragmatism: “I will zoom in on the nub of each case, rather than necessarily looking at the whole canvas”; and her efficiency: “clients are entitled to know after the first hour how much it’s going to cost them or how much they are going to get.” Parker’s intellect is matched by that of her husband — Dr John Landers, Principal of Hertford College, Oxford.
The eldest of three siblings, she ended up like “the big sister” after their father died when she was 9. “Being a divorce lawyer is a bit like being a big sister writ large because you have a strong sympathy and a strong sense of support towards your client. I get great satisfaction from being with someone at a very critical time and I enjoy having responsibility for people at a time of change, persuading them to do things they don’t really like. There’s a sense of privilege and a sense of fun, being able to cut deals and move things on.”
Parker also has a romantic underbelly. “Marriage is terribly popular among my Withers’ assistants. There are two newly wed and three very sparkly engagement rings on three very lovely fingers.”Another top-name divorce lawyer is Fiona Shackleton. Best known for representing the Prince of Wales in his divorce, Shackleton is head of family at Payne Hicks Beach and an adviser to Princes William and Harry. According to Anthony Julius, divorce lawyer to Diana, Princess of Wales: “Fiona is marvellous, clever, considerate and resourceful. She brings those personal virtues to her professional practice. The royal divorce was quite simple. There were no arguments about children. There was a brief negotiation about the terms of the financial settlement. Both sides behaved in an exemplary way, a credit to them when under intense media scrutiny.”
She rarely gives interviews but Shackleton is a sparkling interviewee. “I like sticking up for people, making sure they are not taken advantage of. In family work, everything’s on the line. You need to be a good listener and understand people: your client, your opposition, counsel and the judge. It’s about being wise, having judgment, not being vain and reaching sensible solutions quickly. It helps to have a rod of steel through your back and lots of charm. People generally choose the lawyers they deserve.” She, too, describes herself as “a huge fan of Diana Parker” and was “truly inspired” by Blanche Lucas, the doyenne of divorce lawyers until her death in 1994. “Blanche was a tough negotiator, but also what most women lawyers of my generation aren’t — feminine, successful and uncompromising, not a woman in drag taking the men on.
“My opening salvo to clients is to explore the possibility of not getting divorced. I ask: ‘Are we at the end? Am I looking at a corpse?’. There’s a huge range of unhappiness that clients tolerate or don’t — from ghastly beatings to people who are just bored. I try not to be too judgmental. There are clients, whom everyone thinks are happily married, who’ve been seeing me for years. People hate uncertainty. The most grateful clients are those for whom you can do a deal quickly, so they can get on with their life.”
Echoing the late George Burns, Ray Tooth puffs thoughtfully on his Cohiba Sublime: the fattest available Havana cigar. From behind an enormous mahogany desk, he peers over a stack of files: blue for boys, pink for girls. “A fair divorce,” he growls, “is like beauty. It’s in the eye of the beholder. It should be a compromise not a surrender. Do too well or too badly, and it comes out somewhere else, like a bad boil.” The gnomic Tooth, 66 next week, built his reputation acting for “the wives of wealthy shysters”. Ward explains: “Many of his clients are chicks — after dosh with attitude. They like the engine revved up.” Parker adds: “Ray would be mortified if I didn’t brand him aggressive. He defines himself as Jaws.” Tooth confirms: “The bigger the bully, the bigger the coward. Many husbands don’ t want to stand up in court. Divorce is a game of chess: women have the first move, so men are on the defensive.
“There’s too much posturing by solicitors, although it can be good to fire off some feisty letters — clients then feel that you are fighting their corner hard. Because of delay getting into court, I tell clients: ‘Get on with the case. Move it forward. Don’t take any shit’.
“I don’t think that’s aggressive. Fix a date for hearing, then focus on settlement. My advice to wives is: ‘Get into court as fast as you can. Get your case ready. It concentrates the mind’.”
Tooth built a divorce practice via “the great circus of Tramps nightclub”. His celebrity client list includes Sadie Frost, Cheryl Barrymore and the former Mrs Eric Clapton and Mrs Robert Sangster. He admits that “celebrity clients are not always the nicest people; they’re often arrogant, dismissive and rarely appreciative. To the wives who complain: ‘I can’t take my trolley down Sloane Street three times a week any more’. I respond: ‘What are you on this planet for, just to shop?’.” He offers tongue-in-cheek advice to young women: “Don’t go to university.Get yourself looking good — surgery, deportment — then you choose your victim. City people are good, solicitors, too. Marry. Don’t have children.
“When he goes off with another woman, pounce. Divorce. Get yourself a £3 million house, a settlement and never have to work again. That’s what a girl could easily do, and a lot do.” A divorcee for 35 years, Tooth remarried last October a former client. “He cultivates an act of being a thug,” Shackleton says, “but he is really a complete softie.”
THE TOP 16
Alexiou Fisher Philipps
Bindman & Partners
Charles Russell
Clintons
Dawson Cornwell
Farrer & Co
Goodman Ray
Hughes Fowler Carruthers
Kingsley Napley
Levison Meltzer Pigott
Manches LLP
Miles Preston & Co
Mishcon de Reya
Payne Hicks Beach
Sears Tooth; Withers LLP
