Emma Gill > Vardags > Manchester, England > Lawyer Profile
Vardags Offices
SHIP CANAL HOSUE
98 KING STREET
MANCHESTER
M2 4WU
England
- Firm Profile
- Go to...
Emma Gill
Work Department
Divorce and family law
Position
Emma Gill is a Senior Partner and Head of Vardags’ Manchester office. She specialises in complex matrimonial finance cases, frequently dealing with issues arising from share valuations, option schemes, trusts, foreign properties and pension funds. Emma also acts in financial claims for unmarried partners and is experienced in children matters, often advising on child contact arrangements and relocation within the UK and overseas. Emma’s tough, pragmatic, but sensitive approach has earned her regular recommendations in legal directories since 2009. Legal 500 has previously described her as ‘tenacious in her dealings with tricky legal issues and helpfully no-nonsense in her approach’ and named Emma’s office ‘one to watch in Manchester’.
Accustomed to high-profile cases, Emma’s clients include CEOs of multi-million pound companies, footballers and their spouses, entrepreneurs and business owners. Emma’s clients mainly hail from Northern cities and their environs, but she also has a healthy London practice.
Career
After qualifying in 2005, Emma achieved the position of associate partner then equity partner in a national law firm in under eight years. After three years as equity partner, Emma joined Vardags as a Director and Head of the Manchester office in June 2016.
Emma appears regularly on BBC Breakfast, the Victoria Derbyshire Show, Radio 5 Live and local BBC radio stations throughout the country. Her written commentary on family law, the northern power house, and autism has featured in The Times, The Guardian, Family Law, Prima, and other business press. She has featured in articles for the Manchester Evening News who described her as ‘Manchester’s celebrity divorce lawyer’.
Memberships
Manchester Law Society
Education
The University of Manchester (2001 LLB); College of Law, Chester.
Leisure
Emma resides in Lancashire.
Lawyer Rankings
North West > Private client > Family
(Leading individuals)A firm that demonstrates a ‘mastery of facts’ in both high-value matrimonial finance and complex children welfare cases, Vardags is a strong choice for clients in the North West seeking family legal counsel. Featuring a wealth of in-house specialisms, including a property valuation, financial forensic, and criminal team, the group show established proficiency in pre- and post-nuptial agreements, Schedule 1 Children Act proceedings, and multi-layered financial remedy cases. Leading the practice and recently promoted Regional Managing Partner Emma Gill is an ‘absolute star’, focusing on the firm’s most extensive high value divorce mandates which involve representing a diverse range of clients including sports and media personalities on matters concerning coercive behaviour, extensive property and business assets, and international components. Head of the children department Lucy Williams is an ‘outstanding family lawyer’, routinely leading financial matters with attached issues of domestic abuse and parental alienation, while Annemarie Bradley has a broad practice that includes ‘highly complex and high net worth cases’, usually with technical cross-border components. ‘An experienced head on young shoulders‘, Reece Johnson handles a significant volume of big-ticket mandates, with notable expertise directing asset tracing and analysing complicated corporate structures. Other key names include senior associate Nikki Hale (‘a partner in the making, with intellect and skills beyond her experience‘), senior associate Kate Kempster (‘another star in the making‘), and Gareth Curtis, who joined the practice in April 2023 from Stowe Family Law LLP.