THE LAW firm Mishcon de Reya is home to some of the UK’s most expensive divorce lawyers. It would appear that, having recently represented Heather Mills in her divorce case against Sir Paul McCartney, they are now skilfully manipulating the media to drum up further business.
An article headlined “Love is… a good job and a hefty salary cheque” in today’s Observer spoke volumes about the sort of society in which we live. It said that Mishcon, also famous for handling Princess Diana’s divorce case, is predicting a surge in business as “trophy wives” seek to take the money and run before their beloved investment banker husbands get made redundant.
According to the article, divorce lawyers are predicting a surge in business as trophy wives (and husbands) wonder whether they should cash in their chips before their high-earning husbands (and wives) join the ranks of the unemployed.
“When money looks like flying out of the window, love walks out the door,” Sandra Davis, head of family law at Mishcon de Reya, told the Observer’s Amelia Hill. “Redundancies are still only being whispered about in the big City firms, but already we have never been busier with stay-at-home spouses asking what their options are.”
Miles Geffin, another Mishcon de Reya partner was quoted as saying: “A trophy wife is aware she needs to get proceedings moving before he spends his redundancy and all the capital he has built up. But businessmen who lose their job often see it as an opportunity to head straight off to the divorce courts before they find a new job so alimony payments will be based on their unemployed status.”
The Observer also quoted an anonymous blogger on the website www.hereisthecity.com who revealed in excruciating detail why her husband’s redundancy from an investment bank had driven her to the divorce courts.
“It’s interesting how all these bankers have been writing in detailing their experiences and woes after being laid off,” she wrote. “How typical that they just think of themselves! How about the impact on their wives? Most of us didn’t sign up to share every waking minute with a down-on-his-luck egotist who spends his days moping around with a pitiful hang-dog expression and constantly relives past ‘glories’ in a feeble effort to retain what little self-respect he seems to have left.”
Christine Northam of marriage guidance agency Relate believes stay-at-home spouses who marry for money — and struggle through emotional unhappiness by using spending as a panacea — are bound to react badly when redundancy strikes.
“The problems in relationships based on money and the whizz-bang dynamism of a partner used to brokering huge deals and heading large teams of people can easily be hidden in a flurry of activity,” she told the Observer.
I suppose that if investment bankers’ wives (or husbands) married them purely for the size of their pay packets, then it is probably inevitable that once the font of wealth looks like running dry, they should reconsider their position. Somewhat sad for the children, I’d have thought, but clearly good news for divorce lawyers such as Sandra Davis, some of whom are reporting 300% rises in business as the credit crisis intensifies
There are echoes of The Selfish Capitalist: The Origins of Affluenza in today’s Observer article. In that book, clinical psychologist Oliver James expounds his theory that the reason that ’emotional distress’ is so much more prevalent in economies such as Britain and the US is because self-esteem is so wrapped up with earnings and personal possessions in these countries.
In the book, James writes: “One study of 40 different cultures suggests that ‘materialists’ tend not to subscribe to values which make for good relationships, such as loyalty, forgiveness and helpfulness. In making decisions about people, including their social lives, they put the pursuit of status or money ahead of other attributes likely to result in intimacy or friendship”.
This blog post was published on 25 May 2008