Spear’s Review

‘In our world [of family law], you have to be available, empathetic and energetic,’ Nick Manners, head of the family department at Payne Hicks Beach, tells Spear’s. ‘You have to make quick decisions and think on your feet.’

Manners has spent the past decade climbing the ranks at the firm, working closely with the legendary Baroness Shackleton throughout his career.

He has been involved in many of the firm’s most notable family law cases, including the Princess Haya vs Sheikh Maktoum divorce case, Appleton & Gallagher v News Group Newspaper and PA [2015], Ciccone v Ritchie [2016], Barclay v Barclay [2021] and Potanin v Potanina [2025]. On the latter, he says that it was ‘a real career highlight’ to take a case ‘from the first phone call all the way through to the Supreme Court’.

Read next: Nick Manners of Payne Hicks Beach on attending to family matters

Notable cases

• Loh v Loh-Gronager [2025] EWFC 483
• BR v BR [2025] EWFC 88

Adviser Profile

Nick is head of the award-winning family department at Payne Hicks Beach.

Described as ‘strategically astute and very clever’, he is a specialist family lawyer who focuses on all areas of family law, including issues arising from divorce, cohabitation and the financial consequences of a relationship breakdown. Nick is a skilled litigator with experience of cases at all levels and is one of the very few family lawyers to have worked on a case heard and successfully won in the Supreme Court.

Nick has spent his entire career at PHB working on a vast array of high-value, high-profile and highly complex matters, and is instructed by a wide variety of individuals from all walks of life, such as business and city professionals, entrepreneurs, professional sportspersons and politicians.

Aside from his financial practice, Nick regularly advises on contentious children disputes involving contact, residence and relocation (including international relocation). He also deals with abductions and matters involving same-sex parents.

Nick frequently advises on prenuptial and postnuptial agreements.

Nick works for a variety of high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients on both contentious and non-contentious matters, including those with a complex international angle. He advises clients upon the breakdown of civil partnerships and Inheritance Act claims. He is experienced working on cases involving sharia law, Islamic marriage and divorce.

Nick is part of the team that launched the PHB Mental Health & Family Breakdown Initiative, the first of its kind, to support and protect clients during vulnerable periods of their lives, providing groundbreaking peer-reviewed guides.

Nick is ranked in industry directories, including accolades in both Chambers High Net Worth and UK Guides, The Legal 500 UK and eprivateclient. He is regularly quoted in the national media on family law matters.