The pension split: unfair shares?

© Copyright LexisNexis 2025. All Rights Reserved.

18 September 2019 / Grania Langdon-Down

Issue: 7856 / Categories: Features , Divorce , Pensions , Family

printer

mail-detail

Focusing on the short-term financial needs of clients on divorce can often be to the detriment of their longer-term financial security—but are family lawyers prepared to engineer the drive towards fairness & a pension sharing revolution? Grania Langdon-Down reports

The ‘elephant traps’ surrounding pensions on divorce could see a tidal swell of negligence cases against family lawyers unless they get to grips with the true value of a couple’s pensions, warns James Copson, co-author of a good practice guide.

Research for the ‘Guide to the Treatment of Pensions on Divorce’, published this summer by the Pensions Advisory Group (PAG), found that, of the 369 court files studied, 80% revealed at least one relevant pension and yet only 14% contained a pension order.

Concerns around pension advice has clearly struck a chord with family lawyers, with more than 170 solicitors, barristers, and legal executives responding to a LexisNexis/Mathieson Consulting survey on engaging pension experts in financial settlements.

Half of those responding are highly experienced

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content

If you are already a subscriber sign in

...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

The pension split: unfair shares?

© Copyright LexisNexis 2025. All Rights Reserved.

Focusing on the short-term financial needs of clients on divorce can often be to the detriment of their longer-term financial security—but are family lawyers prepared to engineer the drive towards fairness & a pension sharing revolution? Grania Langdon-Down reports

The ‘elephant traps’ surrounding pensions on divorce could see a tidal swell of negligence cases against family lawyers unless they get to grips with the true value of a couple’s pensions, warns James Copson, co-author of a good practice guide.

Research for the ‘Guide to the Treatment of Pensions on Divorce’, published this summer by the Pensions Advisory Group (PAG), found that, of the 369 court files studied, 80% revealed at least one relevant pension and yet only 14% contained a pension order.

Concerns around pension advice has clearly struck a chord with family lawyers, with more than 170 solicitors, barristers, and legal executives responding to a LexisNexis/Mathieson Consulting survey on engaging pension experts in financial settlements.

Half of those responding are highly experienced

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content

If you are already a subscriber sign in

...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

SourceURL:

Links:

E-newsletter Sign-Up

MOVERS & SHAKERS

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

Blake Morgan managing partner appointed chair of CBI South-East Council

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Commercial dispute resolution team welcomes partner in Cambridge

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

NEWS

NLJ this week: Motor finance faces £11bn reckoning

The proposed £11bn redress scheme following the Supreme Court’s motor finance rulings is analysed in this week’s NLJ by Fred Philpott of Gough Square Chambers

NLJ this week: Gold on Awaab’s Law & digital divorce

In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives

NLJ this week: AI in the dock—courts need literacy, not fear

Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ

NLJ this week: Landlords lose their upward climb

James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights

NLJ this week: Privy Council undresses the ‘shareholder rule’

Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments

back-to-top-scroll