Family disputes and divorce are seldom a smooth and easy process, and the road can be extra bumpy when involving those in the public’s limelight. We have the pleasure of speaking to Vanessa Lloyd Platt, who is the Director of Lloyd Platt & Co Ltd, who speaks about the challenges behind divorce; she discusses what happens when disputed families share businesses and what it is like representing celebrities in the media.
When undergoing the legal process of divorce, what is your main concern? What will be the outcome if that concern is not addressed?
One of the most important issues to be addressed when going through the legal process of divorce, is that the client understands the processes involved and all of the options available to them. Further, if a client does not feel relaxed with the lawyer or does not like the approach being taken, they will not provide the information that is essential or vital to their case. The very first issue is to ensure that the client does feel able to provide some of the most private information about their life, to a third party.
Family law can be a difficult and sensitive area when regarding disputed relationships, what would you label the most satisfying aspect of your work?
Family law is a difficult and sensitive area when dealing with disputed relationships, the most satisfying aspect of my work is either encouraging a couple to reconcile or enabling a particularly difficult case either to be settled, or a result to be achieved where a client has been subjected to emotional or physical abuse.
Family and divorce can evoke a lot of tension and emotion, how does this impact joint businesses or shares within families?
There has no doubt been a huge increase in cases involving family businesses which then impact directly on the business or shares within families. It is extremely important that the client is armed with all of the correct information and that one party does not have access to the information and the other does not. It can delay and form extra anxiety or prevent mediation at an early stage if one party simply feels that they don’t wish to give information to the other.
The options are that either the parties can continue to work together and share the profits as before, or one will have to buy out the other; the question that remains in each case: are there enough assets by one to do so? Alternatively, the business will have to be sold which means that the earning capacity of one or both then becomes crucial to dealing with the case. This is far simpler where the business involves the parties themselves, however, matters can become extremely complex when they are family companies of a dynastic nature where for tax reasons shares might have been transferred during the course of the marriage. One lesson to be learnt from this is that when you have a family company, that there ought to be a prenuptial agreement drawn up before the marriage or a postnuptial agreement during the marriage to make very clear what will happen to those shares, if the marriage comes to an end.
What complications arise in these scenarios when children are involved?
When children are involved in these scenarios it can become ever more complicated. For example, some parties believe that if trusts are set up for children, that those assets cannot be touched in divorce proceedings. However, recent case law has demonstrated that if income is utilised from those trusts, they may rank as matrimonial assets with the Court being able to direct the trustees to utilise them in divorce settlements. This may fly in the face of what was intended from the outset, but if the case turns into what is known as a “needs base case”, then the assets will have to be utilised to provide housing and general needs. In more recent cases, parties suggest that monies should be set aside for housing for the children. This can then lead to a dispute as to how much, with one side suggesting that they should individually provide funds from their respective shares. Again, this can give rise to emotional fall out and difficulties. The general approach of the Court is that they have to look at what assets are available to be divided between the parties and that older children are not their first priority.
What is the biggest challenge when representing celebrities who are actively in the media?
The biggest challenge here is ensure that you have a good working relationship with their agent or publicist, so that the advice that they are getting elsewhere does not conflict with the advice that you are giving to your client.
Social media is undoubtedly the biggest difficulty to lawyers when acting for celebrities, either to prevent them from reacting to social media or utilising the media in a way that prejudices their case. This is particularly the case when children are involved and there must be a consensus of when the children are allowed to be photographed and when they must be shielded from it. When both parties are known celebrities and are not used to being told when or how they should deal with the media, then the perspective of a divorce case can be extremely hard to deal with. It is important that as a lawyer, that you remember that they are only people and that they must understand that they cannot be above the law.
When your firm rocketed with success, how did you maintain your firm’s brand and voice when expanding your team?
It is imperative as a Director of a matrimonial firm to ensure that despite expansion of the team, each lawyer or member of staff understand the basic ethos of the firm. Some firms when expanding can liquidate their original meaning and lose direction. To me and my team, it is imperative that our general message is never diluted.
You contribute to newspapers by writing columns for them, can you choose one piece that you will always remember writing and why?
As a freelance journalist, I often contribute to newspapers by writing on a multitude of topics including matrimonial, divorce and relationships. Some years ago, I wrote a piece for the Daily Mail and I indicated that some women can be to blame for divorce proceedings and described the kind of behaviour that my male clients were describing to me on an ongoing basis. I was simply acting as a conduit to explain why many men were not happy with certain conduct that they were seeing. The article caused comment for two solid weeks in all of the press and resulted in my being invited to write “Secrets of Relationship Success” which was published by Vermillion and which has become a best seller.
You appear as an expert contributor on several news channels, how important is maintaining an objective view when discussing news and current affairs? How do you maintain a non-biased viewpoint?
It is imperative when discussing legal matters to explain both sides of the argument and perhaps the reason as to why a decision has been made. There are times when it is acceptable to say that you agree with the ultimate outcome and why. However, it is important, in order to explain arguments of the case, to maintain an impartial approach as far as possible. In relation to political matters, it is extremely difficult not to occasionally stray into bias. Sometimes, a way to make this less obvious is to inject some humour into the interview.
