Samantha Farndale

Specialisms

Samantha has experience in a broad range of family law matters, including divorce, financial settlements, issues regarding the arrangements for children, nuptial agreements, and cases involving domestic abuse.

Samantha is a member of Resolution, which is a community of family justice professionals who work with families and individuals to resolve issues in a constructive way. Samantha is a Resolution accredited specialist in complex financial remedies, and cohabitation and TOLATA.

Samantha has a particular knowledge in dealing with mid to high net worth divorce clients and has extensive experience in dealing with public sector and final salary pension schemes.

Samantha also has extensive experience in dealing with cases involving the arrangements for children, both private children law and public children law. Samantha has an interest in complex private children cases involving parental alienation.

Approach

Samantha is known for giving straightforward no-nonsense advice. Samantha has a down to earth approach and has a great deal of empathy with her client’s and prioritises their needs throughout their case.

Training & employment

Samantha studied Law at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle, where she also completed her LPC and Master’s degree.  Samantha first worked as a paralegal before commencing her training contract in 2014. She qualified as a Solicitor in January 2016.

Before joining Stowe Family Law, Samantha’s previous experience includes working at a Legal 500 Law firms in Central London and Newcastle.

Samantha joined Stowe Family Law’s St Albans and Berkhamsted offices as a Senior Associate in 2021. She was promoted to Partner in 2023.

Notable cases

Recently, Samantha successfully represented a client in an appeal. Samantha appealed the decision of the magistrates in a private child matter whereby a change of residence was ordered, with that decision being ultimately reversed.

Samantha has successfully argued the need for a s.91(14) Order to be made in order to prevent future applications being made in respect of children, in a case whereby there were several protracted sets of legal proceedings in a short space of time.

Samantha has recently successfully defended a conduct argument in respect of financial remedy proceedings, whereby the Wife sought to argue the Husband’s conduct throughout the marriage amounted to being ‘inequitable to disregard’ when looking at the overall financial settlement.

Outside of work

Outside of work Samantha enjoys travelling, eating out, and going to spinning classes, as well as enjoying long walks in the countryside.