The Start-Up

Amicable is the company trying to take the pain out of divorce

The UK legal system doesn’t make for easy divorce. Amicable are the start-up trying to help with that, believing that divorce can be, well, amicable, writes Martin Friel

Wednesday 11 November 2020 15:30 GMT
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Pip Wilson and Kate Daly want the family to win in the end
Pip Wilson and Kate Daly want the family to win in the end (Amicable)

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s announcement in 2014 that they were ending their marriage via “conscious uncoupling” was met with near-universal derision. It seemed like just the latest piece of Californian nonsense from the woman who has since bestowed her vagina-scented candles upon a bemused populace.

But put the derision aside and ignore the psychobabble and what they were doing sounds completely reasonable – trying to end their marriage without the acrimony. And it appears it is an approach that was designed specifically with the English legal system in mind.

The only grounds for divorce in England and Wales are the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage in cases of adultery, unreasonable behaviour and desertion.

If couples don’t want to go for any of these options, they have to either agree that they have been living apart for two years or, where the divorce is contested, prove they have been separated for five.

A straightforward approach to divorce this is not and one that it is out of step with other jurisdictions. According to a report by the Nuffield Foundation, in 2015, 60 per cent of divorces in England and Wales were granted on the grounds of adultery or unreasonable behaviour. In Scotland, with different legal rules and approaches, that figure was just 6 per cent. And it is a similar picture across the Channel in France.

For those in England and Wales wishing to take the Paltrow/Martin route, there has been little choice other than to accept that one party in the marriage has to accept blame. It is an adversarial system that almost insists upon acrimony.

Which is why Amicable, a company that seeks to help people divorce without the pain, was set up by Kate Daly and Pip Wilson in 2015. Their mission? To “help separating couples part ways on amicable terms”.

“I was a specialist in relationship break-ups and was working with lawyers to help facilitate the collaborative process to help people go through it more amicably,” says Daly who had herself been through a “train wreck” of a divorce a few years earlier.

Following her own harrowing experience, she found this collaborative approach appealing and, on the realisation that there wasn’t that much legal knowledge or support required to complete a divorce, she started thinking about a new approach.

“I liked the way it worked but because lawyers were involved, it was cost-prohibitive. And despite my best efforts to get lawyers to do things differently, they just couldn’t do it. They are trained in the legal system and often don’t think commercially,” she says.

So, she teamed up with co-founder and fellow convert Wilson, and Amicable was born.

The process usually works as follows. One member of the doomed marriage will make contact with Amicable to start the process after which the other partner is invited to take part.

If they agree, they are then allocated a divorce coach (they come from legal, psychology and family consultancy backgrounds) to figure out the practical issues such as finances and custody of any children.

When an agreement is reached between both parties, only then does the legal process come into play.

A lawyer is looking to get the best deal for you. We are looking at the best deal for the family

“The court always plays the judgment role and there are a range of precedents that have to be achieved in a settlement,” explains Wilson.

“All of English and Welsh law sets out what is acceptable, and we have to operate within those bounds of acceptability and the court order needs to be passed.”

She explains that while the court has the final decision, Amicable is focused on understanding what the law says and helping to create settlements that fall within the existing legal parameters. But crucially, they are trying to achieve this in a way that is quicker, cheaper and crucially, less adversarial for the benefit of all.

“A lawyer is looking to get the best deal for you. We are looking at the best deal for the family,” says Wilson.

While the pair are very clear that their approach to divorce can’t be adopted by everyone (vulnerable individuals and those who cannot encourage their partner to take part are signposted to traditional legal services), they are determined to remove the often unnecessary adversity in divorce that the law currently demands.

And while their approach is conciliatory, it’s not surprising that some within the legal fraternity took exception to it.

Two Family Court judges complained to the Solicitors Regulation Authority about Amicable’s role in cases and it ended up in the High Court. But Mr Justice Mostyn ruled in Amicable’s favour describing the approach as being able to provide “greatly improved access to justice” and that he was satisfied no conflict of interest arose in working with both parties in a divorce.

“[Those judges] weren’t saying what we are doing is wrong, but they wanted to understand where it stood legally,” explains Daly.

“All we had done was open up the whole area and the judgment couldn’t have been any clearer. This is about access to justice and disenfranchised people and therefore it should be allowed.”

And on the back of that clarity, Amicable has continued to grow with Wilson estimating that they will help thousands of couples part ways without rancour this year, providing them with 100 per cent year on year growth.

That growth is being achieved hand in hand with a judicial system that is rapidly digitising its processes to be simpler to deal with and the way Amicable operates, plays right into that ambition.

While we wait for the legal system to catch up with the rapidly changing perceptions of divorce, Amicable is working with and within the system to ensure that the focus isn’t on arguing to find “the winner” but that the entire family, albeit fractured, wins in the end.

“It’s a sad thing when a marriage breaks up, but it shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing,” says Wilson.

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