Marilyn Bell Partner | Joint Head of Family Law

Expertise

I help individuals navigate divorce, separation and family breakdown with clarity, composure and control. From financial settlements to complex disputes involving children, I provide steady, strategic advice to help clients move forward – and protect what matters most.

With decades of experience in family law, I’ve supported parents, grandparents and extended families through some of life’s most difficult chapters. My work often involves sensitive and high-stakes issues – including child arrangements, safeguarding concerns, and cases where social services are involved. It increasingly includes complex finances, with tiered structures of companies, and significant tax implications and foreign jurisdictions.

As well as being a solicitor, I’m an accredited mediator and a qualified collaborative lawyer. That means I can offer non-adversarial options wherever possible – helping clients avoid court and reach constructive agreements that reduce stress, delay and cost. But when court is the right path, I’m calm under pressure and unafraid to act.

Above all, I believe in giving clients clarity and confidence – so they can make smart decisions and shape the next stage of life on their own terms.

Specialisms include:

• Divorce and separation.
• Financial settlements and asset division.
• Complex finances, including tax implications.
• Child arrangements and parental responsibility, including parents wanting/or resisting a child being moved permanently to another country.
• Mediation, including child-inclusive mediation and collaborative law.

Key Experience

Complex financial matters where there is also strong emotion from one of the parties, and being able to progress the finances effectively without being submerged in the emotional turmoil surrounding them

Representing the weaker party divorcing a coercively controlling spouse.  Building trust and being able to provide reassurance, alongside steering firmly through what behaviours from the other party will and will not make a difference to the financial outcome.