Meet the Yorkshire lawyer who arranged England's quickest divorce to help woman marry terminally-ill partner

It’s 30 years since he set up John Howe & Co in Pudsey, his hometown, and while some businesses move to more high profile city centre locations as they grow, John has stayed true to his roots.

“I grew up in Pudsey and that’s why the business is there,” he says.

In fact his family connection to the West Yorkshire town goes back even further. His great-grandfather was the sergeant in charge of Pudsey police station in the early 1900s, and today, his family-run law firm is housed in the original Leeds Co-op Industrial Society headquarters in the town centre, a bricks and mortar link to his local community.

However, joining the legal profession wasn’t always a burning ambition. Expelled from school when he was eight, for fighting with his older brother, he left fifth form with one CSE pass (in history) but stayed on to do his O-Levels. He was due to join the RAF as an airframe technician but in the meantime his father organised some work experience at a criminal law firm in Leeds, which he enjoyed. “There was no real aspiration, I just fell into it,” he says.

But having had a taste of it he found he had an aptitude for the subject. He studied law at Newcastle University before doing his Law Society exams in Leeds in 1986.

He qualified two years later doing his training with John Delaney and Co. “He had set up on his own with his wife and built up a successful practice and I always thought that was a good idea and something I wanted to aspire to.”

Over the next six years he worked for several firms gaining experience and understanding of different aspects of the legal profession and building up a client base along the way, before taking the plunge and setting up John Howe & Co in May 1994.

He started the business with his wife, Gill, and his then secretary, Tracey, but rather than specialising, which was the norm, he worked as a general practitioner, doing everything from conveyancing and employment law to litigation and divorce.

“Life doesn’t always fit in a box so my model was to be a general practitioner and buck the trend, which is what we’ve been able to do. And by adopting that approach I’ve been able to do fairly unusual cases quite successfully.”

When he says “unusual”, he’s not joking. You might think the life of a solicitor is fairly routine, staid even, but that certainly isn’t the case here. Among his unlikely claims to fame is holding the record for doing the quickest divorce, back in 2002. “A client came to see me and the story was that she and her husband had separated a few years earlier and hadn’t thought about a divorce even though they both had new partners. I acted for the wife whose new partner found out he was terminally ill and only had a few weeks left to live. For various technical and financial reasons they wanted to get married before he died, but they couldn’t do that because she was still married. She’d been to other firms to see if they could do anything and was turned away. She came to see me and I considered it.”

He thought he might be able to get it done in 28 days, but in the end he was able to do it in five.

“I issued proceedings on the Monday, got the Decree Absolute through on the Friday and she was then able to book the wedding about two or three weeks after that. They had a few weeks of marriage before he ended up in a hospice and died a few weeks afterwards,” he says. “The only reason I was able to do it was because I’m used to thinking outside the box. I dissected the process. At that time you issued proceedings at the local county court so I spoke to them and explained what I was doing and asked, ‘are you on board?’ And they said, ‘yes.’ I spoke to the former husband and he was agreeable and we were able to push everything through.”

It’s still believed to be the fastest divorce in English legal history.

One of the firm’s most high profile cases saw John represent the family of Kevin Speight, one of two Leeds United fans murdered in Turkey on the eve of the team’s Uefa Cup semi-final against Galatasaray in 2000. The story was headline news and thrust him into the spotlight.

“When the conviction was announced the family phoned us up because they had all the press camped outside their house, so I acted as a bit of a buffer between the media and the family. I sent out the press releases and went from camera to camera doing TV interviews to deflect attention away from the family.”

Over the past 30 years his work has taken him all over the UK and Europe, including Bulgaria where he became one of the leading lawyers acting for property investors looking for investment opportunities on the popular Black Sea coast, to the point where he is still recommended by the Law Society for this purpose.

Through it all, though, he says the business has never lost its sense of identity, even though their client base is now nationwide.

“We’re still based in Pudsey. We’re not just there to do the job but to look after people as best we can.”

His loyalty has been repaid, reflected in the high proportion of clients they have retained over the years.

“I’m still acting for some people I first met when I was a trainee and in some cases I’m acting for their children.”

This looks set to continue. His wife still works with him and their daughter Gemma and son Bob, who are both partners, are primed to take over the business, while his son-in-law, Bryn, and niece, Kathryn, also work there. All of which means the family business is in safe hands and continues to grow.

John is, understandably, proud of the legacy he’s created. “I had a plan and fulfilled that plan. That’s how I look at it.”