Helen Ward, a lawyer who has handled the break-ups of a string of celebrities — from Guy Ritchie in his split from Madonna to Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One tycoon, has an iron rule about divorce.

'Don't do it unless you absolutely have to,' she says. 'People going through difficulty in their relationship need to explore whether their love really has died and their marriage really is over.

'Divorce carries a health warning and I think everybody ought to think about this long and hard before they do it.'

She may not recommend it, but Ward, a commanding presence in her navy blue skirt and suit jacket, has made a huge success out of divorce. She has been a partner with Stewarts for five years and, before that, was a partner for 18 years at Manches, where she looked after the divorce of Andrew Lloyd Webber from Sarah Brightman. She is universally agreed to be very good at her job, and is very well paid — not that she will reveal how much.

In the Fifties and Sixties the 'doyenne of the divorce courts' was Blanche Lucas, who was tall and glamorous.

High profile female lawyers revaled their thoughts on divorce. Helen Ward (pictured) has handled a number of celebrity divorces including Madonna and Guy Ritchie

'I remember being a young lawyer and her waltzing into the barristers' chambers in a full-length mink coat,' says Ward. Reputed to speak seven languages and to have notched up six husbands, Lucas was 'the only prominent woman', says Ward. Today the London network of top divorce lawyers is dominated — unlike other areas of law — by women.

Other elite female divorce lawyers include Davina Katz, 37, a partner at Schillings where she heads a team of nine. She charges £575 an hour and tends to work only on cases that have 'assets of £40 million or £50 million-plus'.

Sandra Davis, who handled the break-ups of footballer Thierry Henry from his wife Claire and Jerry Hall in her split from Mick Jagger, is head of the family department at Mishcon de Reya and has worked in family law for more than 30 years. She charges £650 an hour.

Diana Parker, a senior partner at Withers, a law firm near the Old Bailey that serves the rich and super-rich, charges more than £600 an hour and is noted for her 'elegant and effective negotiation'. The largest settlement she has secured to date is just shy of a billion dollars.

It is a world where the younger generation are also making a mark. Adele Pledger, an associate at Withers, was described in 2015 by Spear's, the bi-monthly magazine for the super-rich, as a 'rising star' of family law. Only 31, she charges more than £300 an hour and in 2014 worked on the case in which the ex-wife of Sir Chris Hohn, a billionaire hedge fund manager, was awarded a divorce settlement of £337 million.

These women approach a fresh divorce case like a sporting challenge, delight in its tactics and manoeuvres and are rivals who often come head to head. And their fast-paced, emotionally charged world of scandalous affairs, big settlements and six-inch heels is about to get the full glare of the media spotlight, thanks to a new BBC drama, The Split.

The primetime series centres on two top London divorce lawyers: Hannah Defoe (played by Nicola Walker) and Nina (Annabel Scholey), sisters who now work for rival firms.

Sandra Davis (pictured) has experienced couples taking revenge on each other during divorce including disposing of wine collections

Hannah, the eldest (another sister is 'still finding her way' as a part-time nanny), walks out on the family law firm after her mother, the matriarch of both firm and family, refuses to hand over the company to her as agreed.

The battle lines are drawn up between the sisters, between Hannah and her mother (and her father, who mysteriously appears after walking out more than 30 years before) and, of course, between divorcing couples. One client is unhinged after discovering her husband's quite extraordinary betrayal.

But talking to real-life female divorce lawyers, it's clear that truth can be crazier than fiction.

The four we spoke to have more than 130 years' experience between them and have seen huge changes in the past 20 years, linked to an influx of big money.

'London attracts people who just have ludicrous amounts of money,' Diana Parker says. Asian entrepreneurs, Russian tycoons, European bankers...

'The more there is, the greater the avarice,' says Davina Katz. 'People rarely fight over what they need. They are fighting over what they want.' And 'want' can be driven by revenge, anger — not wanting another woman to have what you regard as rightfully yours.

'Granny's chaise longue, a tea set, the husband's matchbox collection — that's not a collection of Matchbox toy cars, it's matchboxes he collected from all around the world. She set it on fire in the end,' says Sandra Davis, listing some of the things couples argue over.

Davina Katz (pictured) revealed she goes home and invests in her marriage after a day of 'humans being dreadful to each other'

'We've had to negotiate contact arrangements for dogs — how often the dog will see each of the partners.' (Under English law, dogs are considered property, just like cars or furniture). 'The oddest I ever had was a couple fighting over a photograph of the dog — that did seem truly silly,' says Parker.

'I had a case recently where a wife's 'needs' included a clothing, shoes and accessories budget of nearly £1 million a year,' says Katz. 'Much as that sounds absurd, it was in the context of a case where there were two or three billion pounds in terms of assets.'

The cases they handle may also feature acts of terrible revenge, such as slashing a husband's suits to shreds and pouring his entire vintage wine collection down the loo ('it was Chateau Lafite, et cetera,' recalls Sandra Davis). Or throwing clothes out onto the street, tearing up documents or 'telling all' on social media, including to work colleagues on Facebook. 'I've managed to stop my clients doing that,' says Adele Pledger, 'because it can create a sideline litigation for libel.'

English courts have become particularly appealing for spouses of wealthy partners, as the financially weaker party in the relationship (typically the wife) now receives half, rather than a third, of her husband's assets acquired during the marriage.

I had a case recently where a wife's 'needs' included a clothing, shoes and accessories budget of nearly £1m a year! - Katz

The landmark case in 2000 of White V White, a farmer and his wife who divorced after more than 30 years of marriage and had assets of over £4.5 million, set a precedent of splitting assets 50/50, as a way to compensate wives for the non-financial contribution of caring for children.

'The current law is why London is regarded as the divorce capital of the world,' says Davis.

'Most men in my experience are quite cool about a 50/50 split — except if they own a business,' says Parker. 'Often there isn't enough money to go to the wife, so you have to start dismantling the business,' which, she says, can be 'pretty catastrophic', adding that 'it also affects your identity if you're Mr Big in the world in which you operate'.

Secreting money away before asking for a divorce is common, adds Pledger. 'A wife might come to me and say 'I think we have £10 million of marital assets', then you get his disclosure [couples have to be entirely open about all aspects of their finances and submit bank statements, salary slips] and it's £2 million.

'The husband may have done some preliminary rearranging of finances — transferring money into the accounts of his brother, cousin, friends, moving it offshore — long before his wife even knew the marriage was over.

'Bank statements can also reveal intimate secrets to the lawyer. It's quite rare that a wife isn't aware that her husband has used prostitutes, but telling her how often can be hard.'

Revealing that a husband took an escort on an expensive holiday may be even harder.

Diana Parker (pictured) believes marriages can become in danger if couples stop having sex, as intimacy keeps relationships going

'It's not only the betrayal of the affair, it's also financial: you spent money on this,' Pledger explains.

'But on the flip side, husbands may say, well, taking the emotion out of it, what's the difference between me spending money on prostitutes and her spending £20,000 on handbags without telling me?'

In fact, legally there is a huge difference. Wasteful dissipation of marital assets — in other words, money spent on drugs, prostitutes or gambling — can be reimbursed to the spouse 'whereas a handbag habit is not in the same category,' says Pledger.

Female lawyers, it seems, are particularly adept at handling emotional fallouts.

'In general, women are more comfortable talking about feelings and handling emotions,' says Katz, who always wears heels — today, a vertiginous leopard-print pair by Christian Louboutin — and believes that 'how orderly you look is a function of how orderly your mind is'.

You have to have intimacy in a relationship to keep it going. If you don't have a sex life then your marriage is in danger - Parker

She believes 'male clients with big professional positions often feel at ease with a female divorce lawyer because they can put some of their bravado to one side'; and that having been married to a man, 'women will often really rather deal with a woman, not another man, when dismantling their marriage'.

'The skills you need aren't just strategic skills,' says Davis, who believes women are good at gentle psychological probing. 'It can be quite difficult for men to get under the skin of a female client.'

Davis aspires not to look like 'your average lawyer'. She is dressed in snakeskin boots, Max Mara trousers and an Armani dark top, accessorised with a fuchsia-pink scarf. 'I like to show I'm capable of thinking outside the box. I like to push boundaries.'

But Parker, who prefers to be understated — 'when people see me they are feeling pretty overwhelmed anyway' — pooh-poohs talk of feminine soft skills and multi-tasking: 'It is very non-pc to be saying women are good at something and men are good at something else.'

Nevertheless, she has thrived: one of only six female law students in a class of 200 in her year at Cambridge University, from which she graduated with a double first; elected the youngest — and the first — female senior partner of a City law firm, at Withers in 1999.

She has found in matrimonial law an appealing combination of law, psychology, sociology and politics. 'You're at a very central point in a client's life,' she says.

Adele Pledger (pictured) revealed hiding money away before a divorce is common

Divorce has also taught the women much about marriage. All are happily married (Ward for nearly 34 years to Sir Alan Ward, a former judge; Davis for just over 30 years to a businessman; Katz for eight years to a financier. Parker has been with her husband Dr John Landers since she was 19; and Pledger is in a long-term relationship (six years) with a management consultant.

'I doubt that divorce lawyers are better at choosing spouses but we probably have a lower incidence of divorce. Seeing how quickly you can become antagonistic towards somebody who has been important to you encourages you to try to avoid that happening in your own life,' says Parker.

'The day job is a gruesome catalogue of human beings doing dreadful things to each other, so you do tend to go home and invest in your marriage,' Katz agrees.

And having seen divorce up close, they have worked out how cracks can appear in a marriage.

What I often find at the end of the process is that men have regrets - Pledger

'A lot of women think they can stop having sex with their husband and the husband won't notice — and that's just a bit mad in my book,' says Parker.

'You have to have intimacy in a relationship to keep it going. If you don't have a sex life then your marriage is in danger.'

'We're a disposable society and to some extent that's what's happening in relationships, too,' says Davis, 'Some people think that instead of solving the problem in a marriage by going into therapy or making changes, it's just easier to get a new model.'

They don't realise the pain that lies ahead of them.

'Divorce is an absolutely appalling experience and it's difficult when you're going through it to believe it's ever going to end. But it does pass,' says Katz.

And normally, says Pledger, it's the man who will regret it more.

'What I often find at the end of the process is that men have regrets. They may have run off and had their fun, had an affair and maybe that hasn't worked out, then all a sudden they can find themselves completely alone.' And wish they'd never started the divorce process in the first place.