Gary Lineker condemns divorce lawyers

Gary Lineker condemns divorce lawyers

Speaking of his own divorce experience, Gary Lineker has recently been quoted in the press as saying that “we know that lawyers try to manipulate it to make you spend more money and basically end up hating each other”.

This article in the Daily Mail sets out the comments made by Gary Lineker, but does not put forward anything on behalf of the family law profession.  At James Maguire & Co family law we feel that it is only right that both sides of the story are presented.

Our objective is to provide excellent and personal client service. As part of that, we listen to our clients and take on board their own individual aims and objectives. Of course, there are those divorce cases where we are perhaps told at a first meeting that a client wants to take an aggressive approach. However, we advise clients as to their full range of options and will try to steer clients away from an unnecessarily confrontational stance.

There is a code of practice that all solicitors agree to adhere to. This includes conducting matters in a constructive and non-confrontational way. It even goes so far as to advising lawyers to avoid the use of inflammatory language. We take the principles set out in the code of practice very seriously in our day to day work.

Of course, the comments made in the press that Gary Lineker’s divorce was set to cost £1.25millon are exceptional. This has to be taken in the context of a divorce involving a footballer said to be worth £20 -£30million and his model wife who likely has her own assets.

The overarching piece of advice that we give to our clients is to make sure that costs are kept proportionate to the issues at stake. Very often, some money does need to be spent on legal fees to get to the heart of a dispute. In financial matters, this may mean obtaining appropriate valuation evidence or other documents as part of the disclosure process. If you do not know what assets there are and what they are worth, how can you take an informed decision as to how to divide them?

Gary Lineker says that settlements should be simplified to a “mathematical equation”. Even if that were to be the case, we would still need to put into that mathematical equation the correct assets and the corresponding values.

At Maguire Family Law we sometimes despair at how easy a target we are for criticism. Nobody gets married thinking that their relationship will end in divorce and therefore instructing a family law solicitor is something that they perhaps never thought that they would have to do.

However, as family lawyers, we do not feel that we are part of the problem, we are part of the cure; helping clients to find a way forward with clarity and focus and with an over-arching concern to protect the welfare of any children.