26 October 2025: most will not be aware it marks 25 years since the House of Lords handed down its landmark decision in White v White, a case between divorcing dairy farmers Mr and Mrs White.
Following a judgment in the High Court that awarded Mrs White around one-fifth of the family assets and a Court of Appeal judgment that provided for around two-fifths, Mrs White appealed to the House of Lords arguing that her contributions were equal to those of the husband and that she should get an equal share of the assets.
For the very first time the court said, ‘In seeking to achieve a fair outcome there is no place for discrimination between husband and wife and their respective roles.’ Judges were advised to check their decisions against ‘the yardstick of equality of division.’ Equal division should only be departed from with very good reason.
[See also: Landmark divorce ruling puts the ‘sharing principle’ in the spotlight]
In short, the era of 50:50 was upon us, and for the first time a spouse who had made a full domestic contribution to a family had their toil recognised by the divorce courts.
White v White led to a fundamental change in the way financial resources are divided on divorce in England – in the last 25 years, no other divorce case has been as important nor influential for practitioners and clients alike. It was, in many ways, the law catching up with decades of progress on equality in other areas of society, recognising a woman’s role in a marriage as equal to her husband, especially if she had given up her own career for the benefit of the family.
In those 25 years, my firm Payne Hicks Beach have represented divorcing clients in more cases at the highest level than any other firm by a significant margin (a third of all divorce and matrimonial cases to reach the Supreme Court).
We have seen many societal norms evolve and change in this time. Civil Partnerships, Gay Marriage, No-fault divorce have all ushered in big changes to family law and how it is practiced, but in many ways the big one was White, and the equality it ushered in overnight. Payne Hicks Beach has been at the coalface as our legislature navigates these, attempting to better reflect the society in which we live and to ensure the principle of fairness is upheld in every decision.
What has not changed, and was true then as it is now, is that there are living, breathing human beings behind every so-called landmark case.
Relationship breakdown puts enormous strain on anyone involved, and for those clients whose cases reach the highest courts that strain is deepened by the attention and furore that goes with being (inadvertently, in most cases) at the centre of a societal issue or the national conversation.
[See also: ‘Nothing ages you like a bad divorce’: what HNWs are doing to avoid divorce drama]
The reality for these clients can sometimes be lost with the passage of time, too. Mrs White did not in real terms receive the outcome she hoped for. The family assets included two farms, one of which she had hoped to own and operate. Mr White, while meeting his obligations under the House of Lords decision, did not agree to this. She did not even, in fact, receive 50 per cent of the assets, a fact which has often been forgotten, despite the significance of this case.
Mrs White is far from the only person to experience irony of this kind. Owens v Owens, in which Payne Hicks Beach represented Mrs Owens, is now synonymous with the advent of no fault divorce in England and Wales.
This is despite the fact that Mrs Owens herself did not benefit from the passing of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 providing for ‘no-fault divorce’ and bringing us in line with the approach of much of the western world. She remained obliged to wait out the clock until five years had passed from her leaving the marital home.
One of the fundamental differences between White and Owens is of course that the former is an example of a change brought about by case law while the latter led to change brought about by statute.
[See also: What the UK’s third-largest divorce settlement teaches us about coercive control]
Radmacher v Granatino, a groundbreaking case in which Mr Granatino was represented by the legendary Baroness Fiona Shackleton of Payne Hicks Beach, is a further example of the impact of case law. Widely accepted as the most influential case for over a decade in relation to pre-nuptial agreements, the Supreme Court gave the pre-nuptial agreement ‘magnetic importance’ bringing England and Wales more in line with Europe and the United States.
However, this case did not lead to pre-nuptial agreements being automatically upheld as statute would need to be changed for this. It has been 15 years since this decision, and the statute remains unchanged.
There are those today that call for the law relating to family proceedings and specifically to issues such as pre-nuptial agreements and cohabitation between unmarried couples to be overhauled by Parliament, and for the legislation to change rather than relying on case law.
[See also: Pre-marital wealth doesn’t have to be shared on divorce, Supreme Court rules]
It has been argued that this would remove some of the uncertainty experienced by separating and divorcing couples. It might also remove the burden placed on clients that find themselves and their personal circumstances laid out for all to see as their case progresses through the courts.
There are certainly merits to change through both case law and statute. The imperative is and remains achieving fairness, however it comes about.
But is fairness being achieved? Should couples navigating separation today be subject to a piece of outdated legislation passed in the era of Edward Heath and the 3 day working week? The Law Commission says not. In December 2024 it published a report that categorically stated the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 was no longer working effectively nor delivering fair and consistent outcomes for separating couples.
[See also: Fixed fees split opinion in UHNW divorces]
Whether the legislature has the bandwidth to engage meaningfully on the issue of divorce reform remains to be seen. The Law Commission provided the government with four potential ways to reform the law and had expected an interim response within six months and full response within a year.
It is my understanding that, at the time of writing, some ten months since the publication of the scoping report no response has been received, interim or otherwise.
As a family lawyer I have seen time and time again the way in which politicians fail to recognise the sheer scale of positive impact that could be achieved through family law reform. Family law affects everyone – you, the reader, and everyone you know will have been or will be in contact with the legislation on these issues. It is the bread and butter of daily life that, for reasons I cannot fathom, simply does not capture the imagination of our lawmakers in the way other societal issues do.
A familiar refrain has been that the law lags behind societal change – in the case of matrimonial law it is so far in the rearview it can barely be seen. This must change. We wait with bated – hopeful – breath.
Nick Manners is a family lawyer and head of the family department at London law firm Payne Hicks Beach. He was part of the legal team representing Mr Potanin in Potanina v Potanin (UKSC 2024) and Her Royal Highness Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein in the Al M litigation.
