Watson Ramsbottom

Family Law

Head of Family and Director

Rachel Horman-Brown is a Director & Solicitor and the Head of the Family Department at Watson Ramsbottom. She specialises in cases of domestic abuse and stalking with a very fast growing niche practice in cases involving coercive control. Her reputation extends beyond the firm’s North of England base across the UK and overseas. A leading family law barrister has described Rachel’s approach as having a

“protective imperative running through all her work”.

Rachel is known for her ability to recognise coercive control cases even when the victim may not fully realise it and strives to ensure that the court recognise coercive control for the high risk factor that it is – something which is still woefully lacking as Judges often ignore the non-physical abuse even though it is a far more reliable indicator of homicide than physical violence. Rachel deals with particularly complex and high-profile cases, with clients travelling from all ends of the UK to see her for advice and representation, based on her reputation in the area of coercive control and staking cases particularly in the family courts. A recent client’s testimonial on social media is typical of the feedback Rachel receives:

“Rachel Horman-Brown has changed my life. More importantly that of my child. I will never be able to thank her enough. She should indeed be recognised.”

Throughout her career she has worked at the forefront of campaigns for domestic abuse and stalking legislation, Rachel is the Chair of Paladin, the National Stalking Advocacy Service who campaigned to create a specific criminal offence of coercive control and continues to advise the government and police in relation to these issues. Rachel has sat on All Party Parliamentary Groups for Domestic Violence and Stalking & Harassment and was invited to give evidence to the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights about Domestic Violence and Forced Marriage in the House of Lords. Rachel was also involved in the successful campaign to increase the sentence for stalking form 5 years to 10 years. She continues to regularly advise the Home Office and legislatures out of the jurisdiction in relation to legislation and guidance on coercive control and stalking Rachel’s work has been recognised with many national awards, including the 2012 Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Award and 2014 Jordan’s Family Partner of the Year Award. In 2016 Rachel was highly commended as Woman Lawyer of the Year at the National Law Society Excellence Awards. Judges said they wanted to

“recognise technical excellence and exceptional leadership and wanted to highly commend one person because of her work on stalking and coercive control and domestic violence legislation, which has had considerable impact and raised awareness despite lack of proper funding – she has changed the lives of many women across the country”.

In 2016 Rachel won the Eva Women in Business Award and in 2019 she was shortlisted for the Centre for Women’s Justice/Emma Humphries Award for her work in coercive control. Rachel is widely regarded as the go to solicitor regarding cases of coercive control and stalking, harassment and cyberstalking with a national client base of high profile clients.