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Tenacious lawyer proud to be nicknamed 'the barracuda'
WHEN it comes to family law there are few more formidable opponents than Marilyn Stowe.
She says she can tell when someone is having an affair just by looking at them, knows if someone is lying from their handwriting, and will persevere to the end in order to win a case.
She adopted the nickname, "barracuda", after it was coined by the husband of a client for the tenacity with which she attacks cases. "I thought that's a great name," she said.
So it was with some trepidation that I visited the offices of Stowe Family Law in Harrogate to interview the woman behind the formidable reputation.
But my fears soon disappeared when, dressed in a stylish black shift dress, Mrs Stowe greeted me with a warm smile.
In the past her looks have been compared with Celine Dion and Edwina Currie, and while she has a passing resemblance to both women, the comparisons probably don't do her justice.
What is not in doubt, however, is Mrs Stowe's level of ambition and determination to reign at the top of her profession.
The 41-strong Stowe Family Law specialist team in Harrogate is among the largest in the UK and includes two forensic accountants who are experts in tracking down hidden assets.
Mrs Stowe, 51, has acted for aristocrats, footballers' wives, rock stars' spouses, and, more importantly she said, those in the legal profession.
"The bread and butter clients are usually businessmen andprofessionals. I also act for a lot of solicitors, accountants and judges," she said.
"One of the best compliments I got was when a judge came to me to stop his wife from instructing me."
Her crowning moment came in 2003 when, acting pro bono, she unearthed the undisclosed evidence that freed Sally Clark, the solicitor and mother wrongly convicted of murdering her babies.
Mrs Stowe was the first female solicitor outside London to be elected a Fellow of the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and she played a pivotal role in the launch of the Law Society's Family Law Panel, aimed at improving professional standards and providing the public with a benchmark of quality when selecting advisers
She is also the author of two acclaimed guides to surviving marriage breakdowns and even advised Radio 4's The Archers on a divorce storyline.
And as if all that wasn't enough, Mrs Stowe, who has a 20-year-old son, Ben, with her lawyer husband Grahame Stowe is now on a mission to expand her practice.
She opened a Cheshire office earlier this year, where she now spends one day a week, and further offices are planned for the Midlands and Spain.
She said: "I left the panel in 2005, Ben is at university now and this is the time to go for it with the practice. Since I made that decision I have nearly doubled turnover."
She added: "Expanding the practice is about posterity and knowing I have created something from nothing. It's very exciting."
Breaking through the male- dominated world of law wasn't easy when she began her career. "I had to fight for women, certainly in law and certainly in Yorkshire, there is no question about that. I was regarded as an upstart and people would say, 'who does she think she is?'"
Mrs Stowe, who was born in Leeds, met her future husband when they were representing opposite sides in a divorce. They got engaged after 35 days, marrying a few months later.
He had just set up a new practice in Leeds and Mrs Stowe went to join him and his partner, but said they didn't get on as a team. Instead, she set up her own office from a former cobbler's shop in Halton, Leeds.
She said: "The idea was that when we got married I would work part-time and have lots of children."
But when Ben was born seven years later she decided to carry on working.
She added: "My husband bought me a sculpture of a woman with a baby in one hand, a mobile phone in the other, wearing one trainer, one stiletto. She is in work clothes, standing on a skateboard. That is exactly how I think I was."
Mrs Stowe moved to her Harrogate office in 2004 after she was targeted in a random attack outside her practice in Halton.
She said: "I found that very distressing but I went back to work the next day, determined to show that they were not going to stop me. I decided to move the office because I was very concerned that if this happened to me then it could also happen to a client."
In more than 25 years of practising family law, Mrs Stowe said she has seen some dramatic changes.
The law has become more focused, she said, and the settlements have got bigger. The law has also improved regarding access for fathers to their children; although that's an area she hopes will continue to improve in the future, along with cohabitation.
Cases involving terminally-ill clients and cases involving children, she said, are the most heartbreaking to deal with.
But it's the cases of "lunacy" that get her really hot under the collar. "When people are arguing to such an extent where the point is gone, then I will tell them to find another lawyer," she said. "What I am interested in is justice and getting the right answer and sometimes that is very difficult."
Tracking down hidden assets in a divorce case is where her "barracuda" instinct really kicks in.
She said: "A year ago there was a Spanish case where the husband was arguing that England was not the right place to hear the case. I knew if my client lost, she would lose an enormous settlement.
"For four days solid I came into the office in tracksuit bottoms with no make-up, trying to find something to crack the case. I was helped by Deloitte in Spain and they gave me some information to back up the case. The husband caved in immediately and the client walked out of court with a multi-million pound settlement."
She added: "I never give up. A client is spending a lot of money with me and I have to repay that."
Throughout the years Mrs Stowe said she has learned how to tell if a person is having an affair. "If a woman is having an affair, she will have nice make-up and hair done because she wants to look good. A woman whose husband has left her will usually look like she has been dumped."
Another tool she uses is graphology. "I started going running with a guy who does that and I got very interested in it," she said.
"A woman wrote to me and said she wanted to instruct me to divorce her and her husband. I could tell by her handwriting that she was lying, so I rang her and she said, 'I'm so glad you rang, my husband made me write that letter'."
But despite two and a half decades of dealing with other people's divorces, Mrs Stowe remains a supporter of marriage and said that in some ways dealing with so many divorces helps her own marriage to work.
"I firmly believe in marriage and I still think it's the best way of nurturing little ones," she said.
MARILYN STOWE
Title: Senior partner of Stowe Family Law
Date of Birth: April 30, 1957
Education: Leeds Girls' High School and Leeds University.
First job: Law lecturer at Le Mans University in France
Favourite film: As Good As It Gets
Favourite song: At the moment I love Viva La Vida, by Coldplay
Favourite holiday destination: Israel
Last book read: Golda Meir: The Iron Lady of the Middle East by Elinor Burkett
Car driven: Bentley convertible – it's my extravagance
What are you most proud of? My family.
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