Partner Frances Hughes has featured in the Financial Times profile piece, “Meet the women who made London the divorce capital of the world”, which highlights the small group of family lawyers whose cases and advocacy have helped shape modern English divorce law.

Frances’ route into practice is traced from an academic background in English at Oxford, and her early experience in a male dominated profession where family law was still regarded as a “slightly despised field”. The profile highlights the influence of pioneering figures in the discipline, as well as the solidarity that developed among the leading women who began to take on the largest and most complex cases as London grew into the forum of choice for international high net worth divorces.

Frances is recognised as one of a small cohort who helped to bring about a fairer approach to financial outcomes on divorce, and whose work has contributed to London’s reputation for sophisticated ancillary relief litigation. Particular focus is given to the post-White v White landscape and to more recent cases concerning the treatment of international assets and the “matrimonialisation” of wealth.

The continuing evolution of family law is also explored, including the growth of alternative dispute resolution and the changing expectations of clients, while underlining that the complexity of modern cross-border family finance work continues to demand the specialist expertise for which Frances and Hughes Fowler Carruthers are known.

Read the article here.