Spear’s Review

Withers’s energetic partner Katharine Landells specialises in navigating clients through the sensitive and difficult issues that arise in the breakdown of relationships.

She has been involved in a number of ‘very high-conflict and high-stakes’ cases concerning children, both in terms of international relocation and abduction, but also where there are serious allegations of domestic abuse.

High-value prenups are also a speciality, and Landells puts the increase in these agreements down to ‘a continuing disenchantment with the uncertainty that our discretionary system provides’, alongside the ‘failure’ to reform the law in relation to cohabitation.

‘We’re now doing most of our cases out of court,’ she adds, explaining that clients are seeking less contentious ways to resolve conflict. ‘Everyone should have an experience that means that they’re emotionally in the right place to make a decision.’