"A courtroom is a barbaric venue in which to pick over the carcass of a failed marriage," Fiona Shackleton once observed. This week Sir Paul McCartney's divorce lawyer had a ringside seat behind the closed doors of court 34 at the Royal Courts of Justice while her client and Heather Mills tore the last shreds from the bones of their ill-starred four-year union.
Shackleton's roll call of clients include not only the former Beatle but the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Aga Khan, the ex-wife of the Mercedes Benz tycoon Friedrich Flick, and the former spouse of the advertising mogul Sir Martin Sorrell. The roster includes many more well-known figures whose names have never been publicly linked with hers because the discreet settlements she negotiated for them stayed behind the scenes.
Gill Doran, head of the family law department at rival firm Withers, who has known her for more than a decade and has often been on the opposite side, observes: "Typically of Fiona, there have been a raft of cases involving foreigners, very much household names, which were all settled."
The irony of Shackleton's role in one of the decade's most acrimonious celebrity divorces is that her reputation is as a sensible, pragmatic lawyer, always ready to cut a deal rather than battle it out in court. The full-on high court slugfest is not her natural milieu. But once Mills fell out with her lawyers there was never much hope of reaching an out-of-court settlement, however highly Shackleton's peers rate her negotiating powers.
Mills made a scathing attack on Shackleton on the Larry King show last year, describing her as "not a very nice person" who "wants to drag things out" and accusing her of saying "some pretty mean-spirited things about me when I was in a wheelchair". But her rivals in handling "big-money" divorces, as well as the QCs she briefs, speak of her likeability, her readiness to reach agreements and her ability to make clients feel at ease. James Turner, a QC she often works with, describes her as "very amusing and good fun".
Her background is privileged: her late father Jonathan Charkham a distinguished businessman, sheriff of London and adviser to the Bank of England; her mother from the Salmon clan, the leading Anglo-Jewish family who founded the Lyons Corner House empire - which makes her Nigella Lawson's cousin.
At school few would have tipped her to rise to the top in the law, commanding £500 an hour. She had a typical Sloaney start: Benenden, Princess Anne's alma mater, where she was told she didn't have the brains for medicine; a third-class degree at Exeter; a cordon bleu cooking course; and a spell cooking for directors' dining rooms.
Her big break was to be taken on at Farrer & Co after finishing her solicitor training and working for another law firm. Farrers happened to be the solicitors to the royal family. In 1996 she became Prince Charles's personal solicitor and made her name acting for him in his divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales. "That, because she was at Farrers, came to her like a plum off a plum tree," says Richard Sax, a solicitor at Manches, another leading "big money" firm. "But she had extremely good clients before that. She's very good at getting in the clients."
In 2001 she left Farrers - where, according to Sax, she felt undervalued- to move to her present firm, Payne Hicks Beach. Sax praises her negotiating skills. "I like her. When she and I have matters on together, I find her constructive. She can be tough, she knows her stuff but she's always willing to negotiate."
Robert Seabrook, the QC she briefed to represent Charles for his divorce, calls her "a star", adding: "She has an incredible facility for getting to the nub of a case and seeing the wider horizon. She has an extraordinary ability to give people straight answers, often ones they don't want to hear, in such a way that they take it from her."
He also worked with her on behalf of the prince during the abortive prosecution of Diana's butler, Paul Burrell, accused of stealing her personal effects. The royal household was suspected of burying allegations by a footman that he was raped by a prominent member of Prince Charles's staff. Shackleton, asked by the prince to "make it go away" by negotiating a "humane" dismissal package for the footman, George Smith, was criticised by an inquiry carried out by Prince Charles's private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, and a QC, Edmund Lawson, for not calling in a criminal law expert and not investigating whether the rape claim might have been true.
She was dropped as the prince's personal solicitor, though she still acts for William and Harry. She later described her meeting with Smith, who was given a £38,000 payoff to leave the royal staff, as the lowest point of her career. It will be interesting to see whether she will rate the McCartney/Mills fracas as one of the highest.
The CV
Born May 26 1956, to Jonathan Charkham CBE and Moira Frances
Family Husband Ian, son of Lt-Col Richard Shackleton. Two daughters
Education Benenden School, Kent; University of Exeter (LLB)
Career Specialist in family law. Joined Brecher & Co in 1980 and became a partner; later a partner at Farrer & Co and Payne Hicks Beach; acted for the Prince of Wales 1996-2005; now personal solicitor for Princes William and Harry
