Michael Gouriet

Michael has been an integral member of the market leading divorce and family team at Withers for nearly 30 years.

Michael advises on all aspects of family law (including pre- and post-nuptial agreements) with particular emphasis on the resolution of financial issues for wealthy individuals whether married or unmarried and usually with international interests. Michael has acted in numerous divorce cases involving trusts and businesses. Michael also has extensive experience of children law matters, including international relocation.

His breadth of work involves close liaison with many other specialist practice areas at Withers including the contentious trusts and estates team and the wealth planning teams in London, US, Switzerland and Asia (often stress-testing wealth holding structures and advising families on succession).

Michael’s wide variety of clients (from UK, Europe, US, Middle East and Russia) include business owners and entrepreneurs, financiers and other city professionals, landowners, sports and music stars, politicians, and their spouses/partners.

Michael provides expert media commentary on family law issues, and he has chaired and lectured at various family law conferences in England and abroad.

Michael is a certified family law arbitrator, and a trained collaborative lawyer. He has been a member of Resolution’s Cohabitation Committee since its inception in 1995.

Michael has for several years been listed as a leading family lawyer in the legal directories (including Chambers & Partners, Legal 500, Spears, and Citywealth) in which he has variously been described as ‘a real class act’; ‘measured, sensible and knows his law’; ‘highly intelligent, very efficient and a pleasure to deal with - a really strong practitioner’; ‘is just excellent and often sought after by high net worth individuals’; a ‘first-class lawyer’; and ‘he has encyclopaedic knowledge in the area’.

When not at his desk, Michael enjoys playing and watching sport (including running his own cricket side, tennis, road cycling and skiing), and spending time with his family.