Stowe Family Law Partnership
Stowe will work with Aston Law School to provide students with several benefits via sponsorship of the Family Law elective module.
Aston Law School is excited to announce a new collaborative partnership with Stowe Family Law Birmingham, who specialise in divorce, dissolution of civil partnerships and associated matters including financial settlements and arrangements for children. Stowe will work with Aston Law School to provide students with several benefits via sponsorship of the Family Law elective module.
The module is for second-year and final-year students, the several areas of family law, in which Stowe specialises, form the core topics studied on the module:
- Breakdown of marriage and civil partnerships
- Financial orders
- Children - specifically parentage, parental responsibility, public law orders and private law orders.
The best-performing second year and best-performing final year student will both be awarded prizes from the firm. Prizes include a cash sum to help with studies or work experience in the firm.
One of the key motivators for Stowe’s sponsorship of the module is to help future generations of lawyers understand what working as a family lawyer is like. The mindset and personal skills required to succeed differ from one area of the law to another, and it is sometimes difficult for students to try all areas of the law. Stowe recommends that aspiring lawyers do pro bono work, volunteering, summer placements and whatever else they can to gain experience.
As part of the module sponsorship, students will gain the opportunity to ask questions about a career in family law and learn first-hand what working as a family solicitor is really like through Stowe’s on campus workshop. In the workshop Stowe will also discuss a trending topic such as transparency in the family courts or the difficulty in resolving financial orders.
Angela Stanhope, Lecturer at Aston Law School, says: “We are very excited about the collaboration between Stowe Family Law and Aston Law School. The students will gain a valuable insight into the work of a family law solicitor and their learning will be enhanced through the use of case studies created by Stowe. This partnership ensures that students enrolled on the module benefit from real world experience and it underpins and reinforces our wider goal of creating work ready graduates”.
Stowe Managing Partner and Visting Professional Fellow at Aston Law School, Rebecca Calden-Storr adds: “We are very much looking forward to engaging with Aston students. Aston’s Family Law module is very close to what we do at Stowe, so we can fit seamlessly into it. We aim to help by sharing our practical knowledge and expertise on key areas of the module. We are excited to put the theory into context and offer practical support to the next generation of local lawyers”.
Rebecca also explains that connecting with Stowe provides a taste of what it is like working within a niche practice, which she says is important because gaining experience in different areas of law before committing to a traineeship means students are able to make informed choices based on real participation.
Rebecca and other lawyers at Stowe are also involved in the Aston Law School mentoring programme, which has been set up by Aston Law School Lecturer, Adam Shaw-Mellors to give students the opportunity to be paired with mentors from the professional world.
The Stowe Family Law Prize
Each year Stowe Family Law offer a 'prize' to the top achieving student in the Aston Law School final year Family Law module.