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Divorce Law
OCTOBER 2013
LAW
Divorce is always a traumatic time which can often be made much worse by complicated legal issues that need to be dealt with. A skilled and experienced divorce lawyer can make all the difference to such cases, and to find out how, Lawyer Monthly speaks to Vanessa Lloyd Platt, director of Lloyd Platt & Co, a niche matrimonial firm based in North London.
What are the main challenges you face when working on divorce cases?
It is vital to put a client at ease in order to extract the information you need, and then marry up the right fee earner to the client. It is absolutely vital that the client can feel relaxed with the fee earner so that you can get the most from them and they can really feel happy with the services supplied by the firm. I think too often firms don’t think about the fact that clients are people, and so it is really vital that the client and the fee earner match up in terms of personality.
How do you make sure that the right match is made?
I see all new clients and then work out which of the fee earners, including myself, would be best placed to deal with that client, looking at the skills that are needed to deal with that particular case.
Potentially, how complex can divorce cases get?
In our firm they range from mom and dad mortgage cases to some of the most complicated and high worth cases the country has ever seen. They can get extremely complex if they involve hedge funds, very complicated pensions, a web of companies, offshore accounts, or subsidiary companies.
do you tend to have a preference at all for the more complex cases?
I personally love the high net worth cases because you can really get your teeth into them. These cases also give you the chance to change the law, which is what my firm loves to do. It is with those higher end cases that you can find a very interesting point of law, and then you can really make a difference.
However, having said that, I don’t rule out the other end because human interest stories do fascinate me as well.
What advice would you give parties to avoid costly and complex cases?
One of the things we always tell our clients is that when they come in to see us, they should bring a full history, because sometimes lawyers can miss things and also, clients are so aware of costs that they may not want you to take a statement. Therefore it is vital that you obtain a full history.
Secondly, I advise clients to not
encourage their lawyer to write silly, point scoring letters. It doesn’t help and the courts don’t like it.
Thirdly, a lot of women in particular get hooked in to staying in the matrimonial home. You should from the very beginning tell your client to look at all of