Top Recommended Family Lawyers

‘A solid, old-school lawyer,’ one family head of a competitor firm tells Spear’s in commending Erica Shelton. The Bloomsbury-born partner is known for ‘litigating effectively when required with patience and pragmatism’, and she certainly gets results. For instance, she recently won £10.5 million for the wife of Sir Terence Conran in a landmark case where the non-financial contribution to a marriage was taken into account for the first time.

But war is not always necessary: in fact, such forcefulness now receives reprimand from judges. ‘That doesn’t mean you don’t fight very hard for your clients,’ she explains. ‘Of course you do! But I don’t think you see the very aggressive letters that used to be sent when I started.’

The former trust litigator is a member of both ACTAPS (the Association of Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists) and the IAFL, which speaks to her breadth of intellectual interest. A recent case even featured a range of businesses tied up in the Philippines’ political storm.

Shelton, who represents both husbands and wives, has seen a difference in the way both parties issue proceedings. One example is that men often decide to divorce before Christmas, while women wait until the children are back in school — dispelling the common misconception that Divorce D-Day universally falls on the first working day in January.