Steel Magnolia chases tragic mother over £118k legal bill
PrInCe CHArLes’s fearsome divorce lawyer, Baroness shackleton, is known as the ‘ steel Magnolia’ for her blend of charm and determination.
After securing a settlement in which Princess Diana lost her HrH title, she’s proving equally formidable as her firm sues a client who has failed to pay her £650-per-hour fees.
shackleton, 61, left, was hired to represent publisher Fiona scott Lazareff, right, during her divorce from French writer Alexandre Lazareff.
the couple lost their youngest son, nicolas, last year when the 22-year-old froze to death after his drink was spiked in Moscow. But shackleton’s solicitors firm, Payne Hicks Beach, is taking a hard line to make Lazareff settle a crippling legal bill.
In October, Payne Hicks Beach filed a High Court claim against Lazareff for breach of contract. It is suing the bereaved mother for £118,208, including interest, because Lazareff has failed to pay 11 invoices since last summer.
Lazareff instructed the law firm in 2015, and Paynes Hicks Beach says the contract ‘contained the express details as to hourly rates of Baroness shackleton and other fee earners who would be engaged on the matter’.
However, the firm did not fix a price for the overall legal costs, because of ‘uncertainty’ as to how the divorce would proceed. the final bill spiralled from an initial estimate of between £50,000 and £ 300,000 to ‘ within the bracket of £200,000 and £300,000’. In February, Lazareff agreed to settle the bill with the proceeds of the sale of her property in France, according to court papers.
Baroness shackleton of Belgravia is married to ex-Army officer Ian shackleton, a descendant of explorer sir ernest shackleton, and has brokered divorce disputes for Prince Andrew, sir Paul McCartney and the Aga Khan.
Despite her chilly professional reputation, the steel Magnolia says she is ‘very romantic’. ‘Music often moves me to tears,’ shackleton told me at a London Philharmonic summer gala.
Both parties declined to comment.