Top Ten Family Lawyers

‘It’s not all about me,’ says Sandra Davis, Mishcon de Reya’s formidable family department head, who has been in position since 1989.

Davis is very complimentary about the members of her team. ‘We look for lawyers who are both creative and commercial,’ she says. ‘They need to operate as if it’s their money they’re spending and spend it wisely.’

In the past year, Mishcon’s glossy Holborn halls have seen the usual influx of high-profile big-money cases, which are often multi-jurisdictional and involve billionaires and celebrities who inevitably come with complicated financial situations.

‘I think we have a reputation for being firm but fair,’ says Davis, who is known for having represented the Princess of Wales, Jerry Hall, Thierry Henry and Tamara Mellon among others. ‘We push boundaries and we get results… I don’t accept defeat.’

Cases involving children are best dealt with through alternative methods of dispute resolution such as mediation, says Davis, whose department has recently co-authored a book with children’s charity Place2be as part of its work ‘to get children’s voices heard earlier on in the proceedings’.

‘When children are involved it’s not holistically good to polarise parties when they have to co-parent for years to come,’ says Davis.