Ayesha Vardag
”Britain’s top divorce lawyer’ was Ayesha Vardag’s billing by both the Law Society and New York’s prestigious Huffington Post. The Times made Ayesha one of the few family lawyers to be awarded their accolade “Lawyer of the Week” and their distinguished Frances Gibb has commented: “A handful of firms dominate the so-called “glamour” end of the market…Vardags, led by Ayesha Vardag…anointed in many quarters Britain’s pre-eminent divorce lawyer in waiting”. The Evening Standard meanwhile has called Ayesha one of the “star lawyers making London the divorce capital of the world”, while Easy Living dubbed her “the diva of divorce – now more in demand than ever”. Ayesha is best known for winning the landmark Supreme Court case of Radmacher changing the law on prenuptial agreements.
Ayesha is multilingual and speaks fluent French, Italian and Spanish with rusty Russian, Portuguese and Urdu. Ayesha has been sought out to act for or against heirs and heiresses, tycoons, international sport personalities, celebrities, aristocrats and royalty.
Career: Ayesha Vardag read law at Queens’ College, Cambridge, with a Duke of Edinburgh award for membership of the Inner Temple. She was a Cambridge Wiener Anspach scholar for a Masters in European Law at the Université Libre Brussels. She worked on expert research projects at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and at the UN (IAEA) Legal Division in Vienna and helped draft the nuclear energy Safety Convention. She qualified and worked initially as a finance solicitor at the global City law firm Linklaters (London, Moscow) and then at the New York law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges in London. She is dual-qualified as a barrister of the Inner Temple and did pupillage at leading professional negligence set 4 New Square. Her training in matrimonial law was as a mini-pupil to Nicholas Mostyn (then QC), then as one of two assistants to Raymond Tooth at Sears Tooth, who hired her away from the Bar after working with her on her own divorce. She has run the family law course at 5 star Law School Queen Mary’s, London.
Ayesha set up her own specialist family/divorce law firm, Ayesha Vardag Solicitors, in 2005. The firm incorporated and became Vardag Solicitors Limited, rebranded to trade as Vardags (and the only exclusively family law firm finalist for ‘The Lawyer’ award for ‘Niche Practice of the Year’), in 2010, by which point it had become the go-to firm for some of the weightiest divorce cases in the country. Ayesha’s background as a finance solicitor and barrister contribute to her negotiating skills and litigation savvy, while her personal experience of the divorce courts enables her to address her cases with empathy, compassion and common sense. Ayesha won the biggest family law case ever before 9 judges in the Supreme Court (Granatino v Radmacher) in 2010, to make prenuptial agreements work in England. Ayesha also represented Michelle Young in the matter reported in the media as the “Brewster’s Millions” case and Nivin El Gamal in respect of Sheikh Ahmed Al Makhtoum of Dubai. Recent reported cases (since 2007 only) include: S v S [2007] 1 FLR 1496; N v R (Injunction) [2009] 2 FLR 342; NG v KR [2009] 1 FLR 1478; Radmacher (formerly Granatino) v Granatino (No. 1) [2009] 1 FLR 1566; Radmacher (formerly Granatino) v Granatino (No.2) [2009] 2 FLR 1 181; N v R [2009] 2 FLR 342; N v R [2009] 2 FLR 342; Radmacher (formerly Granatino) v Granatino [20 10]1 UKSC 42; B v R [2010] 1 FLR 563.
Publications: Ayesha regularly appears in the media as an expert on the leading cases and legal issues of the day, appearing not least on BBC News, CNN and The Today Programme and throughout the national and international press. She has published articles in Spears Wealth Management and the New York Huffington Post. Her views have been canvassed by the Law Commission. She is sought out as a lecturer, appearing recently at the Shelley Society at Eton, the White Paper conference and at the inaugural session of the Law Society’s public debates, on “The End of Marriage As We Know It”.
Personal: Ayesha is a member of the Oxford and Cambridge club and enjoys opera, travel, movies and dramas, three horses, a cat, a dog and five combined children in family life in Islington, Winchester and Southern Italy.