The divorce lawyer to the rich and powerful, who herself is an advocate for marriage
The coronavirus pandemic has been hard on many businesses, and for the cities where they operate. Simply for one activity in which London specialises – negotiating divorces for the rich and powerful – information technology has benefits. Demand is brisk for elite divorce lawyers, led by Fiona Shackleton, who has guided a long list of royalty, celebrities and the wealthy through marital intermission-ups.
"People have been bottled up with someone they cannot get away from, trying to homeschool their children, both trying to work. It is absolutely combustible, and then yes, I've had a number of calls," she said. "One man called me [on Zoom] from the dorsum of his car with his seatbelt on, maxim 'I just can't accept information technology whatsoever more than . . . This is the only place I can talk without beingness overheard.' "
The defining moment in Baroness Shackleton'southward career came when she represented Prince Charles in his 1996 divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales, which projected her to the top of a small-scale circle of divorce solicitors who cater to the wealthy, and charge between £700 and £ane,200 (S$1,250 to S$2,150) an hour. She is personal solicitor to Prince William and Prince Harry (she is not involved in Meghan Markle'southward recent breach of privacy lawsuit against the Mail).
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Shackleton has been photographed alongside many celebrity clients in the past three decades. The best-known tabloid incident came when Heather Mills, former wife of her client Sir Paul McCartney, angrily tipped a pitcher of water over Shackleton'southward head in 2008, and she emerged from the court with wet hair. Merely she has rarely been interviewed during her pioneering career, preferring to retain her mystique.
Today, with a stern warning that she will not breach whatsoever client confidences, she has relented. She arrives in a scarlet raincoat at Estiatorio Milos, a Greek fish eating place at the foot of Regent Street that until recently thronged with the city's political and financial aristocracy. The flash of colour is typical of one whose wardrobe was once dissected in the Daily Mail service under the headline "Dressed to kill: how divorce lawyer to the stars . . . uses eccentric (and pricey) outfits as weapons."
Despite her tenacity in winning multimillion divorce settlements (or limiting them for wealthier partners), she has been married for 35 years and is an evangelist for the benefits of matrimony. She oftentimes tells clients to remain together, she says later.
"People can go quite cross when I say, 'Have yous been to therapy, have you thought of fixing this marriage? What'southward the toll of being able to read your children a bedtime story when you want?' "
It is articulate on arrival that Shackleton is adept at getting her way. I had mentioned the need for quiet and I am shown to a corner table effectually which a ring of tables has been left empty. Shackleton soon joins me. She is a plain talker with a brisk way, softened by bluish-greenish eyes. A large eye-shaped brooch is pinned to her houndstooth dress.
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Shackleton picked Milos, the UK outpost of a Montreal restaurant opened in 1979 past Costas Spiliadis, because of her fondness for Clio Georgiadis, the restaurant director.
"I like the nutrient and, more importantly, I wanted to support her because she has become a working mother, quite late on in her children'southward development, and it's tough." She also thought of Le Caprice nearby, "merely that's shut now," she added sadly (the restaurant'due south owner, Richard Caring, plans to reopen elsewhere).
We pick from the gear up menu: Greek salad with olives and feta cheese for her, followed by grilled organic salmon; salmon tartare and grilled sea bream with broccoli for me, plus fried potatoes. She orders sparkling water, and I neglect to propose vino, a mistake nosotros never remedy. Hand wipes sit down on our linen napkins, the blueish packets matching the bill of fare, and we sanitise.
Shackleton mentions her 60th birthday dinner (shared with her elderberry daughter's 28th) at Milos 4 years ago, and offers a forthright analogy: "Women are like leaseholds, we're depreciating assets, and men are like freeholds and capeesh. But I don't think in that location's a point in lying about your age or moving skin around. Information technology gets ridiculous when you're a grandmother." Her starting time grandchild was born in April.
Surely there are some benefits for women in seniority, I advise. "In that location are pros and cons. There aren't many pros," she emphasised drily. She concedes 1, after forty years in practice: "The more years go by, the more than you lot tin predict. You see a design and what the next move will be. Like a game of tennis, you lot know where the brawl will drop."
She has had many inquiries lately, and compares the pandemic to the peak seasons for divorce: After summer holidays and Christmas. "When you're socially distanced, you're topping and tailing the twenty-four hour period. On vacation, you're all banged up together. Ditto at Christmas. You lot're hermetically sealed, there'due south a lot of eating and drinking, so comes the New Twelvemonth's resolution – bin the missus."
1 woman arrived at her part ane Christmas to say she was going shopping. "She said, 'Y'all are going to do a divorce petition and I'm going to put it in a cracker. When we become to our in-laws for Christmas, I am going to pull information technology with my husband and brand sure he gets it.' I said, 'I'm not going to be a political party to information technology and it'south never going to work.' "
"Women are like leaseholds, we're depreciating assets, and men are like freeholds and appreciate." – Fiona Shackleton
THE SECRETS TO A SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE
Our starters have come, but Georgiadis, having been alerted to the FT's presence past Shackleton, is not content with serving simply a modest tiffin. Our waiter arrives with a gift of the special – a Jenga belfry of fried courgette and aubergine, with kefalograviera cheese and tzatziki.
"You need to destroy the tower," he explained.
"Oh, my goodness, thanks. That is very naughty, but overnice," Shackleton said.
Shackleton met her married man Ian while studying law at Exeter University, but their friendship deepened 11 years later when she visited Hong Kong, where he was serving in the army.
"While he was out, the amah [housekeeper] told me, 'You no trust him, he is naughty man. Yous number-three daughter.' I said, 'I know the last two. Which one practise y'all think is best?' She said 'Not you, yous very untidy.' "
Her description of her marriage is affectionate but also coolly rational. "Information technology works because we exercise plenty apart and together, and he is a very proficient and decent person. I had the benefit of having washed divorce law for quite a long time earlier I got married, and then I could see who turns up in filing cabinets. Bottom line is, kind means everything."
Nosotros take assailed the belfry, but nutrient keeps on piling upwardly: Our waiter brings us a free serving of yellowtail sashimi. My tartare is delicate, and when I enquire about her salad, she summarised crisply: "It is absolutely delicious, extremely fresh tomatoes, very good olive oil, simply I've never seen quite so much nutrient on one table. We'll accept to step ourselves."
Shackleton funded a research projection at Exeter University into educating children on relationships and on how to choose a partner after her father, a barrister and adviser to the Bank of England, died abruptly of a stroke. "I thought, what happens if you're a kid of five, you're not with your begetter and you worry about your mother? You lot don't have a babyhood."
If divorce is inevitable, she says she advises people to achieve a settlement rather than fight in court. "A new client came to run into me this morning and his case is actually fascinating – there are a lot of judicial decisions we could test. I said, 'You're a successful businessman. You don't want to spend time with me, trying to relieve a few millions. Give it to your wife and motion on.' I similar to become people out of my office as quickly as possible."
She does not need to "fee grind", but her professional life was not always easy. She got a third-class caste at Exeter, thanks to dyslexia.
"I was absolutely hopeless at exams . . . My brain is different to other people's. I see things that they don't come across, and don't meet things they exercise."
Afterwards training at Herbert Smith, the Metropolis law firm, she spent several months as a chef before returning to constabulary and later working for Farrer & Co, a house that has acted for the regal family and purple estates. Information technology was not a happy experience.
She was picked on at the firm, she recalled. "Women were bullied, and being a Jew, I was bullied. To be told, 'We only got this customer because nosotros don't employ a Jew in conveyancing, or 'You're not going to get equity because it's better to have two children' . . . I was bringing in much more piece of work than anyone but I would leave at 5.30pm to put my daughters to bed. They terrorised me into thinking I wasn't very good."
(Farrer later responded: "The firm is saddened past Fiona's comments. They do not reflect the house of xx years agone, nor do they behave any relation to the firm of today. Fiona was an equity partner and her difference had nothing whatsoever to do with her gender or her faith.")
In 2001, Shackleton moved to Payne Hicks Embankment, where she still practises.
"I like to go people out of my office equally chop-chop as possible." – Fiona Shackleton
'LONDON IS A GOOD [DIVORCE] MARKET Considering THE COURTS ARE FAIR'
Our main courses have come up and we toy with them – both fish are tempting merely our appetites are wilting. We turn to London's allure equally a divorce forum. English courts incline towards dividing whatsoever assets acquired during the union equally, although they accept account of prenuptial agreements and in exceptional circumstances can consider "special contributions" made by a wealthier partner. If an oligarch's married woman is a UK resident, giving her the right to file for divorce here, it may be tempting.
Shackleton represented Tatiana Akhmedova, former married woman of the Russian energy billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, in the UK'southward biggest divorce settlement in 2022 – Akhmedova was awarded £453 million in court. She as well acted this year for HRH Princess Haya, old wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, in a child custody instance where he was plant by the court to have been responsible for the abduction of two of his daughters from a previous marriage.
She cites the obstacles to moving to choice the best divorce venue. "If you endeavor moving children without the agreement of a spouse or the courts, you may be done for abduction. I've been involved in a lot of abduction cases."
"Princess Haya?" I venture.
"Princess Diana?" she asked, looking puzzled. I clarify.
"I was going to say, no proffer that anyone abducted anyone else in that example," she said. "Just can I stop you lot correct there? [Princess Haya] is a current example, and so I can't talk about it."
I turn to the Akhmedova divorce instead and she regards me silently.
"That's not electric current, is it?" I asked.
She nodded, and then softened a little. "If you look at that example, they had lived hither for 20 years. Information technology was not a case of [her] forum shopping, or putting a towel on the lounger and popping upward in court a year later and saying, 'Judge what, I'one thousand divorcing y'all.'"
London'southward strength is not the regime for splitting assets but the independence of its courts, she argued. "London is a expert market place considering the courts are fair. You lot cannot buy a approximate in England and people should be much more appreciative of them. Some have huge pay cuts to do public service in pretty ghastly conditions. It is non a lovely life."
Still, she thinks judges have too much discretion, likening them to bouncers making visitors to a costless club pay on leaving, depending on how much they danced. "I think people should know when they get into marriage what they are contracting. You know the contract for a washing machine."
She backed a bill proposed by Baroness Deech in 2022 to brand the financial framework clearer.
Is it difficult constantly to deal with wealthy people who are used to giving orders, I asked. "It's easier, because they tin tell you to become away. You're acting for someone who is used to being told he is wearing clothes even though he has zip on. Yous say, 'I am really lamentable, this is how it is' . . . They are [no longer] paying my mortgage or my school fees. If they tell me it is over, someone else will come along."
But surely they must be reluctant to disclose their unabridged wealth?
"When you act for the rich and famous, you need to get them to reveal their hands pretty quickly so that we can get on to the next thing, which is sorting it all out. I tell them, 'Information technology is either quick torture or slow torture.' They volition exist paying the wife's lawyer to drag it out, so stick information technology on the table."
I raised her royal clientele, expecting her to mollusk up again, only she replied afterward a interruption: "You have non to forget their burdens. Most clients don't accept bodyguards circular the clock, or know that if they put a foot wrong, information technology volition end upwardly everywhere. They can get some other plumber, or another lawyer at the flick of a switch. You lot're not in a tied cottage, then if you lot're honest and non a toady, you tin give good communication."
The waiter comes for our unfinished plates. "You didn't make much of an impression on your chips," Shackleton noted. Nosotros try to reject pudding but the waiter will non hear of it. "It's on the set menu. Shall I make something, do you trust me?" he asked. "I always trust you, only small portions," Shackleton replied. He returns with a large platter of karidopita (walnut block) and baklava.
Every bit we nibble, I inquire whether she attaches as much importance to what she wears as the Mail claimed, or whether it is a sexist double standard.
"I love clothes," she declared. "I like the theatre of costume and I spent quite a lot of my childhood being very fat, when nothing looked nice. So, wearing nice apparel, all bought in sales at practiced prices and made to fit in the personal shopping department of Selfridges, is a great bonus. It is like putting on your uniform, your battle kit."
Over coffee, chat turns to our families, and Shackleton reflected once more on why she tells clients not to fight unnecessarily. "I say, 'Look at it like this, do you detest your spouse more than you love your child?' Children are children for quite a curt time. Play a long game, be all-around, love your child. It will be OK."
"I think people should know when they get into union what they are contracting. You know the contract for a washing car." – Fiona Shackleton
By John Gapper © 2022 The Fiscal Times
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/people/fiona-shackleton-divorce-lawyer-to-the-rich-and-powerful-246906
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