Mariko Wilson

Mariko is a director at Family Law in Partnership. She handles all aspects of private family law and has a broad range of experience, frequently acting for high net worth individuals in financial relief and divorce proceedings as well as acting in children matters. Mariko has particular expertise in cases involving complex pensions issues, and in cases in which mental health issues are a feature. 

Mariko has acted on a number of complex cross border financial matters, often advising non tax resident and non tax domiciled individuals, entrepreneurs and individuals from the financial sector. She also has experience in dealing with property claims brought by third parties and unmarried cohabitants under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996. 

Mariko is experienced in dealing with cross border private children law matters particularly proceedings where one parent seeks to remove a child from the jurisdiction contrary to the wishes of the other. She also advises on financial claims on behalf of the children of unmarried parents under Schedule 1 of the Children Act, including in a cross border context. 

Mariko has been regularly named as a Leading Individual for family/matrimonial matters in the highly regarded legal directories Legal 500 UK, Chambers UK and Chambers HNW. 

Naming Mariko as a Next Generation Partner, Legal 500 UK 2024 notes: “Mariko Wilson is outstanding, clever, gentle, thoughtful, and conscientious. Excellent client manner, great on detail, but sees the overall picture”. Earlier editions comment: “Mariko Wilson is exceptionally able. She is bright, organised, and forthright but charming”; “extremely numerate and a joy to work with”; and “hugely impressive – a powerhouse of industry, enthusiasm and good humour, and a very shrewd litigator“.

Chambers HNW comments of Mariko: “Mariko is absolutely terrific. She is really organised, knowledgeable and diligent”; “Mariko is a really impressive lawyer”; “She has impeccable judgment, manages her clients well and always proffers sensible and realistic advice”; and “She is just great. She is calm, clever and manages her clients so well. Clients are always prepared and their expectations are managed.“

Mariko has been regularly named as a Rising Star in The Spear’s 500 Guide of leading family lawyers where she was described as “personable and impressive“. The Citywealth Leaders List has also ranked Mariko as a leading family lawyer noting that “She works tirelessly for her clients, going above and beyond at all times to act in their best interests.”

Mariko is a qualified collaborative lawyer and a family mediator. She is a member of Resolution’s Pensions Tax & Financial Remedies Committee.

• Mariko acted on behalf of a wife in financial proceedings involving complex multi-jurisdictional tax issues. The marriage had been a long one with the complicating factor of a significant age differential. Both parties had been high earners but, as a result of the age gap, were at very different stages in their careers. Mariko successfully argued for a significant departure from equality in the wife’s favour on account of this factor and the wife’s premarital contributions.
• Mariko represented a husband in financial proceedings where a significant financial claim was made by the wife, (notwithstanding her own earning capacity), on account of the wife claiming that she was the primary carer of their 5 small children. Mariko successfully negotiated an immediate clean break on behalf of the husband, together with 50% of the capital, on account of the reality of the parties’ childcare arrangements (being an almost equal division of care).
• Mariko successfully secured the return of two children to their home in West Africa with their mother, the children having been wrongfully retained in the UK by their father following a holiday.
• Mariko acted for the father in successfully defending an application (made by his ex-wife) to remove their two children permanently from the jurisdiction to her home town in Canada. Having defeated the application for leave to remove, Mariko also secured a costs order in the father’s favour to preserve the re-housing fund for himself and the children.

Mariko was co-author of the article ‘Financial Remedies Court: What Can We Expect Under Peel J?’ which appeared in Family Law Journal (September 2022).