It was traumatic and shoes were hurled from windows, but eventually the country’s “top” divorce lawyer was able to sign her own fail-safe document
Britain’s “top divorce” lawyer just can’t resist laying bare her personal life for the amusement of lesser mortals — her latest installment is the trauma of cutting a pre-nup with the lucky intended.
Ayesha Vardag — who runs a plush bijou law firm in London’s Old Bailey — last week used a Daily Telegraph blog as a platform to espouse the romance of drafting a pre-nuptial agreement in the run-up to tying the knot with her fiancé last weekend.
Those following the Vardag wedding saga will remember her own blog site from back in March, in which the barrister-turned-solicitor set out in blinging detail many of the features of the big day at Winchester Cathedral. These included a very large ring and suggested modes of transport including a steam train and vintage Rollers.
But before the joyous ceremony could take place, according Vardag, came the stressful negotiations over who gets what if it all goes the shape of a pear.
Vardag herself acknowledges that one would expect that cutting a pre-nup with her now husband — Stephen Bence, the firm’s own non-lawyer “financial and commercial specialist” — should be like falling off a log, considering, as she tells us, that she … er … does this type of thing for a living.
Not only that — Vardag tells Telegraph readers in a discreet and humble manner:
“…my firm has been drafting these things from the moment our Radmacher case made them binding on the courts. We’ve worked with pretty much every precedent in the market place. We have our very own precedents worked up feverishly by Oxbridge boffins and seasoned practitioners.”
So what could possibly go wrong? Did good old-fashioned human emotion rear its inconvenient head? Not really.
The issue for Ayesha and Stephen was that her life is, well, just so damnably complicated. The woman leads an international existence, with property in the UK, Italy and possibly Moscow (she’s not too clear on that point). There’s a chance the couple could decamp to Dubai — and then there’s the issue of her actual domicile, which is apparently Pakistan.
Indeed, so frustrating was the process of hammering out these details — albeit in the salubrious surroundings of an Italian holiday villa — that tempers flared and inevitably pairs of shoes and pajamas were thrown from windows (much to the amusement of a group of local builders).
But in the end, this is a happy story — not least for London divorce lawyers looking to promote the benefits of pre-nups to their clients.
Vardag finishes the blog with these uplifting words:
“Signing the pre-nup was a moment of very deep respect for each other, and gave us a real sense of the reality and seriousness of what we were doing in getting married. Contrary to what everyone might think, it was incredibly romantic.”
Further Reading:
9 reasons why Britain’s top divorce lawyer is set to have Britain’s top wedding [Legal Cheek]