London judge sides with divorcing US lawyer in battle over baby grand piano
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Attorney Richard Fields doesn’t play the piano at all and his estranged wife Ekaterina admittedly is no expert.
But somehow a $100,000 baby grand piano in the couple’s former New York apartment has become a focal point in divorce proceedings in the family division of London’s High Court. Legal fees for both sides reportedly could reach 1 million British pounds.
Fields, who is managing director of Juridica Asset Management, said he had already lost another baby grand in an earlier divorce from another wife and doesn’t want to lose this one, too, according to the Daily Mail and the Irish Independent.
His lawyer, Stephen Trowell, told the court the instrument “has particular resonance.”
While reserving judgment on the division of all of the couple’s roughly $9 million in assets, a High Court judge said Richard Fields gets to keep the piano. The court noted both that he owned it before their marriage and that it would have to be shipped overseas to put it in Ekaterina Fields’ hands.
Related coverage:
The Guardian: “Judge urges divorcing couple to end ‘awful’ court fight and reach settlement”
