In a rare but important case with lessons for other talented and high earning professionals, a wife has received an additional lump sum of £400,000 on top of a 50% share of the assets from her marriage.

RC v JC [2020] EWHC 466 (Fam) involved two divorcing lawyers. In order to look after the couple’s children, the wife left her position at a Magic Circle law firm at the point, she argued, when she was on track for partnership. She eventually left the legal profession entirely.

Had she stayed on, she said she could have expected to earn similar to her husband (approximately £2m gross per annum). While the judge, Mr Justice Moor, could not say that the wife would have become partner, he was clear, based on the evidence before him, that she ‘might well have become a partner.’ This was sufficient for the finding of ‘relationship generated disadvantage’.

The pr