Pauline Fowler

Practice Areas

A wide range of complex international financial matters, complicated private children’s law including international adoption, surrogacy and same sex parenting, mediation in challenging children’s matters and high net worth finance.

Career

Qualifying in 1983, Pauline was previously a partner at Bates Wells & Braithwaite from1990, before co-founding Hughes Fowler Carruthers in 2001. She trained as a mediator in 1993. Ranked in Band 1 in Chambers for many years, Pauline is a well known and very highly regarded family lawyer. She has been described as a "steely and brilliant lawyer" and "a formidable practitioner in this field" who "thinks outside the box" and is "brilliant at resolving the trickiest of cases".

She is praised in Chambers UK 2023 for being “extremely clever and focused on getting a good outcome for clients”, “technically brilliant”, “tactically strong” and “a very good lawyer”. One source observes “Pauline is a very effective problem solver; she has a good sense of what is going to be the right decision in a case, which comes from her vast experience but also her insight.”

Commentators in Chambers 2022 describe her as “an extremely capable, careful and precise lawyer. She runs her cases in a very careful and measured way, which means she gets really good results for her clients. Most that know her will say that she is calm in the most stressful situations."

She is in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame for family law, and has been rated as a leading individual in its family mediation category for a number of years. She is rated as one of the top 50 women lawyers in London (across all disciplines) in Super Lawyers. She won Gold in Woman of the Year – Professional Services at the CityWealth Powerwomen Awards 2023.

Professional Memberships

Pauline is a fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers and a member of Resolution, the Law Society and BAAF Legal Group. She chaired Resolution’s Pensions, Tax and Financial Remedies Committee for many years, and is a member of the Pensions Advisory Group.

Personal

Pauline lives in London and Kent. She plays violin and piano and is an enthusiastic theatre goer.