Sleazy divorce lawyers?!
When I was younger and started to go into family law, I still remember one of my best friends saying, “so, sleazy divorce lawyer it is ay?”. Now, I practice in all areas of family law, divorce as well as public and private law children, but just occasionally I do look at my career choice and wonder?!
The thing is that in this country, we thankfully haven’t quite gone the way of the US in having divorce lawyers as per the movies who are mini-celebrities in themselves.
As such my notice was attracted when I received “the lawyer” daily e-mail today as it described how Peter Andre has instructed a relative newcomer to the British divorce lawyer club to represent in him in his future publicity-fest. What was interesting was that the e-mail listed the ‘top’ british divorce lawyers, as follows:
Fiona Shackleton (of Payne Hicks Beach - and Shacka of Macca fame!)
Helen Ward (of Manches)
Mark Harper (of Withers)
Raymond Tooth (of Sears Tooth)
Maggie Rae & Liz Vernon (of Clintons)
Sandra Davis (of Mishcon de Reya)
and now … Stephen Foster (of Stewarts Law)
These names are indeed those lawyers dealing with the types of client that lend themselves to the ’sleazy divorce’ stories that one sees in the tabloids (and for the record I don’t think the above ‘good and great’ or indeed any divorce lawyers in the UK are ’sleazy lawyers’). However, the description of them as the ‘magic circle’ of divorce lawyers is one I would question.
Whilst the above are certainly superb lawyers, I would raise the other 99.9% of practitioners who deal with the small to medium cases which do not make the headlines. Actually, to my mind these lawyers are the true celebs as cases with ‘oodles’ of money are straightforward - trying to make non-existenet sums stretch is far more complicated (and emotionally challenging and heartbreaking), than deciding who gets the LA penthouse.