How big law firms evolved into what they are today

Legal Cheek’s four-part podcast series about the recent history of corporate law, beginning in 1978 and continuing up to the present day, is now complete, with the final episode going live this week.

The series features a quartet of hour-long chats between legendary former Allen & Overy dealmaker Alan Paul and Legal Cheek founder and managing director Alex Aldridge — in which Alex asks Alan to recall his career and reflect on how corporate law has changed.

It’s a must-listen for aspiring commercial lawyers and anyone interested to understand the world of City law better.

Listen to the series below on Spotify

• The 1980s
• The 1990s
• The 2000s
• The 2010s up until today

This series is also available on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

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Podcast: Former Magic Circle dealmaker Alan Paul looks back on the chaos that ensued in the following years

The historic financial crash of 2008 was nothing short of a disaster. That’s according to former Allen & Overy partner, Alan Paul, who joined us for the latest instalment in Legal Cheek’s legal histories podcast.

In conversation with Legal Cheek publisher Alex Aldridge, Paul explores many of the factors that led to the crash, which culminated in the bankruptcy of financial services giant Lehman Brothers, and discusses how it all went so wrong.

Paul, a well-respected City dealmaker at the time, also recalls the knock-on effect for him, his clients and the wider legal industry, with swathes of the workforce considered for redundancies and training positions decimated.

This is a standalone podcast, but if you enjoyed it make sure to check out our previous episodes where Alan and Alex remember corporate law in the 1980s and 90s.

You can listen to the podcast in full on Spotify, iTunes and Google Podcasts.

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For the second edition of Legal Cheek’s new legal history podcast series, we’re joined again by Alan Paul, former Allen & Overy partner and corporate law legend.

Paul remembers the period which saw City law firms undergo rapid global expansion throughout the 1990s, a roller coaster decade which concluded with the rise of Tony Blair’s New Labour government, the dot-com bubble and the millennium bug. Paul also walks us through the start of the 21st century, in a period he describes as the “craziest of the debt madness”, where systemic risk culminated in the lead up to 2008.

This is a standalone podcast episode, but do make sure to check out the previous edition in the series, where Paul explores developments in corporate law in the 1980s.

You can listen to the podcast in full on Spotify, iTunes and Google Podcasts.

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On the first of Legal Cheek’s new legal history podcast mini-series, we sat down with former Allen & Overy partner and corporate law star Alan Paul, to get his first-hand insight on corporate law in the 1980s.

Paul chats about his career journey from trainee solicitor in the late 1970s, during the Winter of Discontent and at the beginning of Margaret Thatcher’s term as UK Prime Minister, to Magic Circle partner by the mid-80s, and through until the end of the decade. He reflects on some of the stark differences between his experience and what lawyers face today, as well as the similarly testing economic and social environments at that time and now, and more.

You can listen to the podcast in full on Spotify, iTunes and Google Podcasts.

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If you’re unfamiliar with the BNOCs of law-gram, rest assured that Lucy Cole (also known as @lucydoeslaw) is one of them. With nearly 10,000 followers, the future Clifford Chance trainee is known for embracing Instagram’s Stories, TV and Reels to share her study and application tips with the masses.

In this episode of The Legal Cheek Podcast, Cole looks back at her studygramming journey so far, explaining how she copes with the pressures of social media and her advice to those wanting to follow in her footsteps.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

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Students have had a tough time during the pandemic, with many finding that online teaching doesn’t quite match the in-person experience and some disappointed with their universities’ responses to the COVID lockdowns.

In law, a group of BPP University students have been particularly vocal with their complaints, publishing an open letter outlining their unhappiness with delivery of the Legal Practice Course (LPC). This letter has been reported widely across the legal press.

Legal Cheek reporter Adam Mawardi sat down with one of this group of BPP students to hear first-hand their claims and complaints. Listen to their interview in the podcast below (the student’s voice has been disguised):

BPP has responded stating that it does not comment publicly on individual complaints but that “formalised complaints raised by students are taken extremely seriously and go through our robust, credible and independent procedure of review.”

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

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Effective communication is a key part of everyday lawyer life.

Whether you’re advising a client on a conference call, giving a presentation on legal updates, explaining a point to your supervisor or even speaking with your colleagues in a weekly team meeting — lawyers must be confident communicators. Even more so now that remote working continues to reshape the delivery of legal services.

With this in mind, in the latest episode of The Legal Cheek Podcast, City lawyer Eloise Skinner offers her tips and tricks on becoming a better public speaker.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

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How can you make the most of your time as a junior lawyer?

In the latest episode of The Legal Cheek Podcast, City lawyer Eloise Skinner talks about the skills you can cultivate during the early stages of your legal career — whether you’re a newly qualified (NQ) solicitor fresh from a retention round, a training contract holder or even an aspiring lawyer.

To prepare you for law firm life, Skinner breaks her advice down into three sections: the importance of staying curious, ways of upskilling, and building your personal brand.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

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How do you stay resilient in the face of failure?

In this episode of The Legal Cheek Podcast, city lawyer Eloise Skinner speaks to Richard Youle, private equity partner at Skadden, who discusses the importance of being organised, asking for constructive feedback and knowing when to ask yourself, ‘is this the right job for me?’.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, iTunes and Google Podcasts.

This podcast episode was recorded before the lockdown.

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Thanks to COVID-19 and the ensuing lockdown, many of us will have a bit more time on our hands than we expected this summer.

While it could be tempting to sink into an endless cycle of Netflix and TikTok, there are perhaps more productive ways to be spending your time.

In this episode of The Legal Cheek Podcast, Eloise Skinner, an associate at a US law firm in London, reveals her top tips for being more productive under lockdown.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, iTunes and Google Podcasts.

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When 21 year old Lewis Baxter isn’t studying law at Durham University, he’s raising awareness of mental health either as a public speaker or as founder and CEO of The Blurred Line Group, the UK’s first funding hub for local mental health charities.

But how does he fit it all in? In the third episode of The Legal Cheek Podcast, Baxter talks to Eloise Skinner, associate at a US law firm in London, about his top time-management tips and his big plans for the future.

This podcast was recorded prior to the government lockdown.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, iTunes and Google Podcasts.

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You might have already heard of Chrissie Wolfe — with thousands of subscribers on her YouTube channel, Law and Broader, she balances life on social media with life as a personal injury lawyer.

And Wolfe doesn’t stop there — she’s been nominated for multiple awards and speaks regularly at various industry events. In the second episode of The Legal Cheek Podcast, Wolfe talks to Eloise Skinner, associate at a US law firm in London, about life, law and learning to balance it all.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, iTunes and Google Podcasts.

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Why type of lawyer do you want to be, and why? A common, yet tricky question many law students face in the hunt for the elusive training contract.

As part of Legal Cheek’s podcast series, a trio of City lawyers reflect on their reasons for pursuing a career in law and how their passion for their respective practice areas has developed over time.

With City tax law specialist Eloise Skinner playing podcast host, Oliver Haddock explains what drew him towards a career in litigation. “I love the tactical elements of a case,” he says. “Even if it is just getting an extra inch in negotiations or making sure my argument beats someone else’s argument — I love all that sort of stuff.”

For silver circle lawyer Kayleigh Leonie, it was the choices she made while at university that ultimately led to her specialising in employment law. She tells Skinner:

“At university I did an employment law module and focused my dissertation on the equality act, looking at religion and belief… For me, employment law encapsulated what I was really passionate about and took it into the legal sphere — it was combining two really good elements of things I enjoyed into one.”

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above or by clicking the link here.

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“There’s a lot of support for entrepreneurs in society: there’s a kind of ‘force’ which is there … that wants to foster new stuff,” says Alex Aldridge, founder and publisher of Legal Cheek: “Goodwill comes your way.”

Speaking to David Burgess, head of media law practice Reviewed & Cleared, in the latest episode of the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast, Aldridge reveals how he took Legal Cheek from an obscure blog to a busy law news site, moving from his kitchen table and “not having to get dressed in the morning” to a staff of six, bucking the negative trend in journalism.

Aldridge says he feels “born again” with his own business, leaving law and mainstream legal journalism behind. But, he says, steering his own ship is also “really gritty”, there isn’t a light bulb moment when it all becomes clear: “It’s small victories which you grind out. There are terrible spells, when you wake up in the morning and think: what the hell am I doing?”

There’s a lot of excitement and freedom to running your own show, Aldridge believes, and reveals how building up the site “totally changed my life” not least because “I realised I could save a lot of time not being hungover. Loads of people are limited by alcohol. The psychological effect of hangovers is important, it drags people down.” If you run your own business, “you want a clear head”.

Once a start-up has gained a foothold, there’s no time for complacency, observes Aldridge. He says “you have to keep clients happy” but “you also have to take risks”. He adopts an analogy that had once been given to him:

“If you get to an airport, say, twenty times, and you are catching every flight on time and you aren’t missing a flight, then you are getting to the airport too early. You need to operate on a bit of an edge.”

Aldridge believes lawyers can “definitely be entrepreneurial” despite the lawyer mindset which is “worrying about the detail of things”. But that mindset does, in part, explain why in pure percentage terms there are fewer entrepreneur-lawyers than in other professions or sectors.

That mindset is not the only barrier. Aldridge points to the fact that lawyers can and do tend to “earn a lot of money” and take on financial responsibilities which makes starting something from scratch that much more of a gamble. With newly-qualifieds earning £80,000 upwards: “what also traps a lawyer in is the money they are earning.”

Find out more about Aldridge and the early years at Legal Cheek and download the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast for free via SoundCloud and iTunes.

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“When you’re selling, just give me a call,” David Burgess said to one-time colleague Peter Smith, a lawyer who was living a “brilliant life” working remotely from his shed in Scotland giving pre-publication and pre-broadcast legal advice. Some years later, when Burgess was a successful newspaper lawyer with The Independent, Smith did just that. He was retiring and he was ready to sell his small legal practice. What was a “throwaway remark” made over drinks became a business deal: Burgess agreed to take the practice on — and has since rebranded it as Reviewed & Cleared and grown it dramatically.

Instrumental in growing the firm was investment which Burgess received a couple of years in from media and technology specialist outfit Wiggin, with whom Reviewed & Cleared now has a referral relationship.

Speaking to Legal Cheek publisher Alex Aldridge on the latest episode of the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast, Burgess reveals just why he decided to take the plunge and give up the security of his hard-earned and successful job. Like many entrepreneurs before him, Burgess yearned for more flexibility and a “chance to do something different”.

Burgess describes how he qualified at international reputation and privacy consultancy firm Schillings. He then spent a decade in media law working as an in-house legal counsel at some of the most prominent media organisations in the business, including MTV Networks, the Hearst Corporation and The Independent and Evening Standard newspapers.

Burgess now leads a team of nine experienced lawyers who work on a flexible basis.

Listen to the full interview via the media player above or through Soundcloud or iTunes.

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Recalling her decision to hand in her notice and start her own business, Nicola Hartley admits she didn’t consider the risk: “I make up my mind and just want to do something. I thought it was fine — I’ve got savings and worst-case scenario I’ll get another job.”

Three years later, Hartley is founder and director of her company, Mint & Co, a legal and business consultancy advising the creative industry. Speaking to David Burgess who heads up media law practice Reviewed & Cleared in the latest episode of the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast, Hartley explains why “flexibility” is key in her business. Mint & Co provides small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that cannot afford an in-house lawyer (or the hefty law firm fees) with flexible solutions, Hartley tells Burgess.

Qualifying as a media lawyer at Richards Butler (since acquired by Reed Smith), Hartley says she uses her experience as a lawyer to analyse the risks facing her clients. In comparison with more “risk-averse” law firms, Hartley’ spends less time “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s” by adopting a more hands on approach.

Hartley’s decision to start anew also stemmed from wanting to spend more time with her daughter — something she finds increasingly common in the legal workplace. “Our industry is taking a while to get up to speed with accommodating working parents,” she says. Mint & Co, however, is “reimagining” the workplace and its team of eight consultants can work remotely “wherever and whenever” they want.

Her journey has not been without challenges — the most significant of which was parting ways with her business partner in the early stages of the business. Hartley explains:

“We were so fixated on getting something set up that we didn’t really spend enough time working out whether we were compatible as business partners. Even though she was a friend and a great person, we just weren’t gelling in terms of our hopes and aspirations.”

Hartley has since learnt that when forming a business relationship, “you should sit down and talk properly about your aims for the business and check that you’re aligned.”

Looking ahead, she’s working on her transition from lawyer to CEO. Slowing this process down is the pleasure she takes in being with clients and working with them. She admits there’s a 60:40 split between her role as CEO and lawyer respectively, but this is a “cliched, but classic” dilemma — that “you’re supposed to be working on the business, not in the business”.

Please note that due to technical difficulties experienced during recording, the audio is quieter than usual during the first half of the podcast.

You can download the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast for free via SoundCloud and iTunes.

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Fresh from a recent merger, reputation law firm Himsworth Scott is growing at a rapid pace. Founded at the beginning of last month, it is “aggressively hiring” and seeking “good quality associates” to meet its large appetite reflected in the huge work pile currently on its plate.

Leading the way is co-founder Matt Himsworth and former senior associate at international reputation and privacy consultancy Schillings. Speaking in the latest episode of the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast, Himsworth expresses his desire to build a “mini empire” with a strong focus on “freedom”. Responding to this, interviewer David Burgess, head of media law practice Reviewed & Cleared, playfully reassures listeners that Himsworth is not bearing blue face paint in a Braveheart fashion.

For Himsworth, the decision to set up his own law firm stemmed from the desire to have “the freedom to make your own decisions, to do the work you want to do… and to service the client in the way that you want to service the client.”

In practice, this has translated into Himsworth Scott taking a hands-on approach to building strong relationships with its clients. “There’s only so far you can go with being a libel firm that sues people or defends people who are being sued. So we believe in long, strong relationships. Being there for the long-term objectives of our clients and being part of that client’s business,” Himsworth tells Burgess.

On a personal level, Himsworth’s newfound ‘freedom’ means having more control over his work-life balance. He admits that he missed “a lot of the first three years” of his daughter’s life due to work commitments while at Schillings. “I’m very much a family man and wanted to be a father that was actively involved in my kids’ life — and there were times when this was being taken away from me,” he reflects.

It was shortly before the birth of his second child that Himsworth decided to leave Schillings where he had been for ten years. He set up his eponymous firm, Himsworths Legal, in 2012. The niche legal consultancy initially operated from his backroom in Hertfordshire, but quickly garnered a number of clients in the sports industry, including top-notch premier league football clubs. Then opportunity knocked. Himsworth realised that his friend, Chris Scott, a former partner at Schillings, could add value to the business. As a result, Himsworth Scott was born.

Now that Himsworth enjoys greater flexibility over his work-life balance, he does admit that like most lawyers, he has trouble switching off. “I’m not a relaxer!” he says. But this work ethic is something that Himsworth is “perversely proud” of and is a testament to his entrepreneurial character.

“I’m contactable by my clients at all times, I’m really responsive. A football agent, a football club, a FTSE 100 business or a high-net-worth individual knows if they send me a text or email on Sunday, there will be very few occasions that it will take more than an hour to get a response back. My wife’s not a massive fan of that, but she is when I tell her how much they are paying me to do all that.”

You can download the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast for free via SoundCloud and iTunes.

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They say that knowledge is power: “One secret I’ve learnt,” founder of legal crowdfunding platform CrowdJustice Julia Salasky, reveals, “is that Supreme Court copying costs can be, like, £6-7,000 pounds!”

Speaking to David Burgess, head of media law practice Reviewed & Cleared, in the first episode of the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast, Salasky opens up about her journey from commercial litigator to businesswoman and champion of access to justice.

Salasky set up CrowdJustice just over three years ago. Through the site, a person facing a legal issue without the disposable income to cover the legal fees can, with the guidance of a lawyer, set up an online page on it to raise funds from their family, friends and the broader community. As Salasky puts it:

“It’s about bringing people together around legal issues. People can get behind an issue and participate in the legal system and that was inaccessible before.”

CrowdJustice is a game changer. It doesn’t dish out legal advice nor does it provide legal aid. What it does do is “provide transparency and access” where “legal services are opaque and expensive”.

It’s a carefully vetted process. Salasky’s 15-strong team of lawyers, technologists and campaigners, have “robust checks” in place to ensure that the lawyer instructed to a case is compliant. The funds are then transferred to the lawyer’s client account and the case moves forward.

When a user of the site wins a really big case or achieves change — “that’s a great achievement,” for Salasky. She continues:

“It feels super profound to have played a very small part in that and sometimes the whole team will go down to court if there’s a big hearing.”

Previously an associate at magic circle outfit Linklaters, the self-confessed “risk-hungry” lawyer’s longing to “make a difference from the ground level up” soon took over. After a stint working for the United Nations in Vienna, Salasky took sabbatical leave. It was during that time that CrowdJustice was formed.

Making the move from lawyer to entrepreneur was a steep learning curve. “I strived for perfection in my legal career and was almost super-comprehensive about things,” says Salasky. But the now-CEO soon learned that business needs are different and you have to think about a whole host of factors, for instance, cost (i.e. watching out for the copying costs at our top court!): “Clients don’t want a three-page memo — they want three bullet points… Lawyers want to explain the reasons behind a decision but when there are so many decisions to be made every day, that takes up time”, Salasky says.

What’s next for the Chancery Lane-based crowdfunding company? Growth, Salasky tells Burgess, particularly in family law cases where a large proportion of parties have to represent themselves as litigants in person.

You can download the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast for free via SoundCloud and iTunes.

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“Without sounding really pompous I’ve always had a natural sense of justice,” says Karen Jackson on her motivations for becoming a lawyer. “It was a real interest in helping and protecting the underdog”.

Speaking to employment law specialist Kevin Poulter in the latest episode of The Hearing podcast, Jackson reflects on her route into the profession and how a major health scare prompted her to launch her own law firm.

Having graduated from the University College London (UCL) with a first class degree in French, Jackson briefly considered becoming a teacher before eventually landing a role in banking — a path open to her, she says, thanks to her proficiency in a second language.

Jackson, however, still harboured ambitions of becoming a lawyer. Hoping to use her well-paid City broker job to raise enough money to fund her way through law school, she tells Poulter:

“I thought I can earn the most there and stash the money and get back to what I really wanted to do… Standing on the floor screaming, hands in the air, hand signals, all of that stuff. It’s all very exciting and the most money I have ever been paid for doing not very much at all — other than the ten minutes when the markets were going bananas.”

Following stints at major banking players including JP Morgan and Union Bank of Switzerland, an opportunity to take voluntary redundancy came Jackson’s way: one she grabbed with both hands with a view to a career change to law.

With her sights now firmly set on the legal profession, Jackson completed the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) part-time at London Metropolitan University. Alongside her studies, she secured a role in the legal department of L’Oréal, a position that saw her work closely with the cosmetic giant’s legal director. On this incredible opportunity she says:

“It was fantastic, she was an amazing teacher but very strict. She taught me how to write some wicked letters.”

Through her contacts at L’Oréal, Jackson secured a training contract at international law firm Mishcon de Reya, a two-year experience which fueled her passion for employment law. Once qualified, Jackson’s interest in all things employment continued to grow when she returned to L’Oréal as its head of legal.

Reflecting her time as a newly qualified lawyer with a vast amount of responsibility, Jackson says:

“I guess because I had been there before my training people knew who I was. But L’Oréal is a very meritocratic organisation and people don’t tend to judge you on how old you are. I would be working with directors in other parts of the business who were really, really young but they were just good and it wasn’t a ‘you don’t look old enough to have that job’ kind of thing.”

Then life as a lawyer came to an abrupt halt. A long battle with hereditary heart condition meant in 2006 Jackson was forced to give up work and undergo heart transplantation surgery. She tells Poulter:

“I started to get really substantially ill and was told I was going into heart failure and knew I was not going to be able to carry on working — even though I did carry on working up until the point where I was passing out… I was told very quickly that I need to have a heart transplant or I would be dead by Christmas.”

It was while waiting on her new heart that Jackson decided it was time for a change. And that came in the form of Didlaw, a London-based law firm specialising in disability and discrimination law that Jackson founded in 2008. She recalls:

“I spent a lot of time thinking, ‘What is my concept? What do I want to do? What does my business look like?’ And at around that time was one of the first big decisions from the High Court around stress at work and employer responsibility for stress, and I thought that is a huge area. That kind of became the primary focus, mental health issues rather than physical health issues.”

You can hear more about Jackson’s route into the profession, battle with ill-health and law firm venture in The Hearing podcast.

Listen to the podcast above or download it for free on iTunes, SoundCloud and Spotify

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US criminal defence lawyer Dean Strang shot to fame following his appearance on Netflix docuseries Making a Murderer. The true-crime show centres on the life of Steven Avery, who served 18 years in prison for attempted murder, before being fully exonerated in 2003 — only to be found guilty of murder in a separate case two years later. Strang was one of the lawyers tasked with helping Avery clear his name.

Speaking to employment lawyer Kevin Poulter in the first transatlantic episode of The Hearing podcast, Strang opens up about dealing with the media and his concerns for the US justice system.

Strang held aspirations of becoming an editorial cartoonist before punting for law. Abandoning his artistic dream due to its lack of career longevity, Strang’s father suggested he train as a lawyer — a path he admits he “dismissed” for years.

Fortunately, Strang “loved” law school and went on to specialise in criminal defence work after being offered a job working alongside two leading lawyers in the field.

Reflecting on perhaps his most famous case, Strang describes how he grappled with the intense media circus surrounding Avery’s life — daily press conferences and interviews quickly became the norm, he tells Poulter. Although he understands viewers’ fascination with a good old “whodunnit”, Strang explains how being directly involved in one is slightly less enthralling. He says:

“Almost all parts of a trial are really bad parts of theatre. They’re poorly paced, unscripted and often clumsy. They’re drudgery. They do, however, have moments of genuine human passion, satisfying oratory, use of language and poignancy.”

So what’s life like for Strang now the cameras have stopped rolling?

He tells Poulter that alongside “side hustles” such as teaching law and penning books on legal history, he continues to practise criminal law. He did consider becoming a judge but “gave those aspirations up” now that he’s too old to do so in the States. Would he consider a move to the UK to realise this ambition? “That looks more attractive with every tweet Donald Trump sends,” he jokes.

Garnering a huge amount of attention from his appearance on the Netlix show, Strang has become an unlikely international sex symbol. But what do his students make of this? The ones that knew him before the programme are “amused” by it all, he explains. But there does appear to be one upside: Strang has noticed an “increased attendance in class!”

You can hear more about Strang’s involvement on the Avery case and his concerns about the American criminal justice system in The Hearing podcast.

Listen to the podcast above or download it for free on iTunes, SoundCloud and Spotify

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Ayesha Vardag is one of the world’s most recognisable divorce lawyers.

Speaking to Child & Child partner Kevin Poulter in the latest episode of The Hearing podcast, the ‘diva of divorce’ discusses law reform, politics and her rise to legal fame.

Dividing her time between Dubai, Italy and London, Vardag thanks the internet for being able to be everywhere at the same time. “I can be absolutely anywhere, even if it’s running a conference from a treehouse in the Amazon.” What’s more, she’s even got her own personal ‘Var-Bot’, a Skype-enabled screen connected to a Segway which wanders the corridors of her London office

It was, however, a “series of accidents” that brought Vardag to family law. She joined Linklaters as a fresh-faced Cambridge law grad and later qualified into the firm’s project finance team. Seconded to Moscow, Vardag worked on “big money” cases and carried out complex legal research — skills that would ultimately help shape her own family law practice. A brief spell at US outfit Weil Gotshal followed before Vardag moved across to the bar and pupillage with London’s 4 New Square.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly to plan. Impending divorce and two toddlers to take care of meant Vardag was forced to abandon her barrister dream. But it was while working on her own divorce, alongside renowned family lawyer Raymond Tooth, Vardag finally “found [her] niche”. So impressed by her legal skills Tooth offered her a job at his firm — “it was very Erin Brockovich”, she tells Poulter.

It was a “strong foundation” that empowered Vardag to bring City-level quality to family law when she set up her firm Vardags 13 years ago. Originally housed in a “little, quaint Victorian office” in the heart of Temple Bar, the opera-trained singer tried to recreate the “Dickensian” feel in the firm’s current base at St Paul’s. “The law we do is so deeply personal that it’s important our clients feel at home,” says Vardag.

She famously represented Katrin Radmacher, a German heiress, in Radmacher v Granatino, the Supreme Court case that gave legal status to prenuptial agreements in England. She’s also involved in reforms to no fault divorce, having lobbied the issue at a “lively” Conservative Party conference where outspoken journalist Katie Hopkins turned up wearing her wedding dress.

Now a leading family practitioner, Vardag is asked for her view on ‘forum shopping’, the practice where international litigants come to London for more favourable divorce judgments. With Brexit likely to throw a spanner in the works, Vardag is hoping Europeans will continue to be welcomed under a new special regime. “I hope to see London as a global cosmopolitan, a properly eclectic hub for all the world, rather than a fortress Europe,” she says.

When asked by Poulter if she’d ever venture into politics herself, Vardag said:

“The bottom line is the firm is my baby and politics would split my focus too much. I care about making a difference and influencing policy — but I can do that from my current position. My focus is to build a dynastic firm that will be around for hundreds of years.”

On the future of her firm, the diva of divorce has plans to diversify and enhance the Vardag offering. Employment law, property law, and given the nature of her clients, media and sports law, are all areas she’s hoping to tap into.

Listen to the podcast above or download it for free on iTunes, SoundCloud and Spotify

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