the times | Wednesday February 23 2022 3
News
An aristocratic pop singer has tri-
umphed over her brother, a viscount, in
a bitter court battle over a £2 million in-
heritance nearly a decade after their
mother died.
Bo Bruce, whose full title is Lady
Catherine Anna Brudenell-Bruce, was
runner-up on the television talent show
The Voice, in 2012.
Bruce, 37, and her brother Thomas,
who is Viscount Savernake, are the
children of Lady Rosamond, the former
Countess of Cardigan, and David Bru-
denell-Bruce, the Earl of Cardigan.
Their mother died of cancer, aged 63,
in 2012, leaving her estate to her two
children in equal shares. The estate in-
cluded the countess’s home, Leigh Hill
House in Wiltshire, which she received
in her divorce from the earl in 2009. It
is on the Savernake estate.
The High Court was told that Saver-
nake — who is two years older than his
sister and was named administrator of
the estate and lives in the house— had
failed to sell it and share the inherit-
ance. The singer was described in court
mother’s death and Bruce wanted the
house to stay in the family. However,
the singer changed her mind in 2015.
The court was told that the viscount
did not want the house — a part of theold Savernake Estate still in family
hands — to be sold and agreed he
would continue living there and pay
£20,000-a-year rent to his sister to re-
flect her half-ownership.
Claiming he wanted ultimately to
buy his sister out of her share, Saver-
nake also advanced her regular loans
and paid £11,000 towards her wedding
in 2016 to Henry Binns, of the musical
duo, Zero 7. But Ball said that over the
years the viscount did not initiate a
buyout or sale of the property, a failure
that in effect cut his sister out of her
inheritance.
In a note to her brother and his repre-
sentatives in 2018, Bruce wrote that she
felt “locked into ownership” of a prop-
erty that was her “only financial secur-
ity” but that she did not live in.
Describing the legal battle as “an
unfortunate case of sibling distrust”,
Linwood said that while there had been
no wrongdoing on Savernake’s part, re-
placing him with an independent
executor was in the best interests of
the beneficiaries. They would now be
able to have the house valued and sold
or bought out at a fair price by the
viscount.
The judge added that the most recent
valuation of the property suggested a
price of up to £2.4 million.
The Earl of Cardigan attended the
two-day trial, but sat at the back of
court, separate from his children’s
entourages.Happiness is not an emotion lawyers
readily associate with the high-pres-
sure world of City dealmaking. Many
partners at such firms are paid more
than £1 million a year – and newly quali-
fied solicitors can earn starting salaries
of more than £160,000 – yet stress and
burn-out rates are high.
Which is why one candidate for a top
role at a “magic circle” firm wants to
bring a little more joy to the harassed
solicitors pulling all-night shifts on
their client’s latest mergers by creating
Lord Cardigan handed his wife Leigh Hill House, top left, when they divorced. Bo Bruce has been unable to realise her legacycookery books under her
maiden name, Rosamund
Winkley, had died of pan-
creatic cancer a year
earlier, leaving her entire
estate — of which the
house is the main asset —
to her two children.
Steven Ball, a barrister
for Bruce, told the judge
that relations had been
“fairly amicable” between
the siblings after theirLawyer makes case for joyful firm with happiness officer role
the role of “chief happiness officer”.
Jonathan Kewley is standing for
appointment as the managing partner
at the London headquarters of Clifford
Chance, one of the five so-called magic
circle international law firms in the UK.
A specialist in technology law and
intellectual property, he has dissemi-
nated a manifesto in his battle to oust
the incumbent managing partner,
Michael Bates. As well as calling for the
creation of a chief happiness officer,
Kewley told his fellow partners that “we
must foster a culture where holidays
(holy days) are sacred”, The Lawyerwebsite reported. Kewley, an Oxford
University graduate, qualified as a
solicitor in 2007 and joined Clifford
Chance seven years ago.
He went on to exhort the partners:
“Let’s surprise, let’s delight, let’s dream,”
while also getting down to practical
matters such as proposing to institute a
pilot scheme of a four-day working
week. “We have a generational oppor-
tunity to create the most vibrant, happy
and uplifting place to work in the
world,” he said, adding that “this paper
is written from a joyful place”.
Bates, a finance specialist who quali-fied as a solicitor in 1993 and has been in
the firm’s London lead role since 2018,
adopted a more traditional line.
His campaign message addressed
what he sees as a need to “adjust the
leverage model to incorporate more
non-partner senior lawyers”. Bates also
wants to restructure the firm’s defined
benefit pension scheme.
The London managing partner role
runs for four years and is chosen not
through an election but with the global
managing partner, Matthew Layton,
taking soundings from partners.
Over recent years, Clifford Chancehas fostered an image of modernity and
social awareness. At the end of 2020,
the firm’s partners unveiled software to
replace the gendered pronouns “he” or
“she” with “they” or “them”.
But its bosses have also exhibited a
harder edge. Early in the coronavirus
pandemic, partners were barred from
collecting a 5 per cent pay rise to help
the firm weather Covid.
Clifford Chance refused to comment
on the manifestos. Last year, the firm
reported a global revenue of £1.83 bil-
lion, which resulted in average pay for
full-equity partners of £1.85 million.Jonathan Ames Legal Editor
Aristocratic
singer wins
court battle
over £2m pile
as being “desperate for money”.
She has spent years trying to
persuade her brother to sell
the property or buy her share.
The court was told that
he refused either of her pro-
posals.
Bruce sued him in the High
Court and a judge has now or-
dered that the viscount be
sacked as executor, in a ruling
that paves the way for a sale.
The judge, deputy
master John Linwood,
said that the brother,
who wants to keep the
house in the family,
had “ignored his re-
sponsibilities” to his
sister as executor of
the will.
The court was
told that Bruce, and
her brother grew up
on the historic Sav-
ernake Estate, near
Marlborough in
Wiltshire.
After shooting to
fame on The Voice,
Bruce signed for
Mercury Records and
released the top-ten
album Before I Sleep
in 2013.
The siblings’
mother, who wroteAn earl’s daughter was
denied her inheritance
by her brother’s refusal
to sell a family home,
writes Jonathan Ames
SWNS; CHAMPION NEWS SERVICEAncient estate with forest at its heart
6 The old-Etonian
David Brudenell-
Bruce holds
the Earl of
Cardigan title, a
peerage created
in 1661.6 Its most famous
holder has been
James
Thomas
Brudenell, the
British general
who led troops
in the 1854
Battle of
Balaklava
during theCrimean war — the
occasion immortalised
in Alfred Tennyson’s
poem The Charge of
the Light Brigade.6 The 4,500-acre
Savernake Estates in
Wiltshire, which
include Britain’s only
privately owned forest,
have been in the
family for more than
1,000 years.6 The forest is referred
to in a Saxon Charter
from King Athelstan in
934 as “Safernoc”.6 It was here that Jane
Seymour — a distant
ancestor of the earl —
and Henry VIII were
thought to enjoy
romantic strolls
through the trees. It is
more likely that the
Tudor king hunted
deer in the forest.6 Brudenell-Bruce
can also count
Sir Robert Brudenell
(1461-1531) among
his relatives, a former
lord chief justice of
the Court of Common
Pleas.Viscount
Savernake will
be replaced as
executor of his
mother’s estate