Nicola Howard KC
  • Nicola Howard is exceptional and fights clients' corners very well.

    Chambers UK 2025, Financial Crime

  • Nicola is a really good jury advocate.

    Chambers UK 2025, Financial Crime

  • She's economical in cross-examination and has a good nose for where the case might be won and lost.

    Chambers UK 2025, Financial Crime

  • Nicola is excellent with all manner of clients and communicates with all core parts of the case.

    Chambers UK 2025, Financial Crime

  • She gives no-nonsense advice.

    Chambers UK 2025, Financial Crime

  • Nicola is authoritative, yet serene and reassuring.

    Legal 500 2025, Fraud: Crime

  • She is pragmatic and garners a client's trust with great skill.

    Legal 500 2025, Fraud: Crime

  • An advocate with a commanding presence.

    Legal 500 2025, Fraud: Crime

  • Nicola is a fantastic advocate to work with, a view shared with all of my clients that instruct her. This is mainly due to her relentless approach to thorough preparation of cases and an ability to really focus on what's at the heart of a client's case and therefore the route to an acquittal.

    Legal 500 2025, Business and Regulatory Crime (Including Global Investigations)

  • Nicola is a superb fraud lawyer. 

    Legal 500 2024, Business and Regulatory Crime (Including Global Investigations)

  • She is robust and her judgement is first class.

    Legal 500 2024, Business and Regulatory Crime (Including Global Investigations)

  • She knows when and how to work with the prosecution to further the interests of her clients.

    Legal 500 2024, Business and Regulatory Crime (Including Global Investigations)

  • Nicola is a first-rate silk. She is exceptionally bright and has an astonishing attention to detail. 

    Legal 500 2024, Fraud: Crime

  • She is a superb jury advocate, great with lay clients, and her written work is excellent.

    Legal 500 2024, Fraud: Crime

  • A really solid performer - reliable and great perspective on cases. 

    Legal 500 2023, Business and Regulatory Crime (Including Global Investigations)

  • She gets on excellently with clients and judges and gains their confidence easily. First rate.

    Legal 500 2023, Business and Regulatory Crime (Including Global Investigations)

  • Nicola is a superb advocate, great strategist, brilliant with clients, great on her feet and a first rate silk for fraud.

    Legal 500 2023, Fraud: Crime

  • A great advocate for clients who is on top of everything. Her closing speeches are superb.

    Chambers UK 2022

  • A great advocate for her clients and brilliantly intelligent.

    Chambers UK 2022

  • She has a fearless approach in the way she defends clients in court.

    Chambers UK 2022

  • Nicola is a technically brilliant, hardworking advocate. She is a great tactician in court, and is great at putting clients at ease.

    Legal 500 2022, Fraud Crime

  • Nicola has always been a confident and fearless advocate who is able to build excellent relationships with clients in what are often stressful and difficult cases where the stakes could not be higher. 

    Legal 500 2022, Business and Regulatory Crime 

  • Clients form a trusting bond with Nicola and which is backed up by excellent representation both in and out of court. 

    Legal 500 2022, Business and Regulatory Crime 

  • A thorough and efficient barrister who is friendly but tough. She is a very good jury advocate who adopts a down-to-earth, clear and common-sense approach.

    Chambers UK 2021

  • She has a good judgement and is excellent with clients. Very technically knowledgeable and a good advocate.

    Chambers UK 2021

  • She is completely on top of her cases and she is lovely to work with. She is enormously well respected at the Bar.

    Chambers UK 2021

  • Her advice and approach to cases is measured and extremely thorough.

    Legal 500 2021, Business and Regulatory Crime

  • A silk of imperturbable yet firm authority. Nicola has a forensic approach to her work, she is able to anticipate at the outset the likely outcome of the case this is huge asset. She is a fearless advocate in court, she is great at dealing with lay clients and is excellent with her written work. She is also user friendly for solicitors, always available to offer advice.

    Legal 500 2021, Fraud

  • She brings a sense of calm to a chaotic situation.

    Legal 500 2020

  • She is a calm and confident advocate.

    Legal 500 2020

  • Always very practical, good with clients and very well prepared.

    Chambers UK 2020

  • She's technically brilliant.

    Chambers UK 2020

  • She is very enthusiastic and capable of mixing it with the bolshiest of  prosecutors.

    Chambers UK

  • Whenever things need to be focused or put in perspective, she is excellent at analysing things in a rational way. Her decision-making and judgement are phenomenal.

    Chambers UK

  • Nicola Howard is a fantastic advocate with a technical mind.

    Chambers UK

  • She offers very good client care, is really good on paper and is very jury-friendly.

    Chambers UK

  • A lawyer who is always on top of her brief.

    Legal 500

  • Wins increasing court backing due to her communicative client manner and her skill in swiftly amassing evidence.

    Legal 500

  • Extremely talented.

    Chambers UK

  • Subtle and effective in multi-handed trials.

    Legal 500

  • An ideal junior for dealing with complex cases and demanding clients.

    Chambers UK

  • Extremely good on the organisation front, she shows great attention to detail and is firm when clients need to have a little pressure applied.

    Chambers UK

  • She is lovely to work with, clearly respected and a consummate junior who gets on very well with judges in London.

    Chambers UK

  • She provides robust and clear advice.

    Legal 500

  • She specialises in fraud matters with a great early command of the case papers.

    Legal 500

Called 1995

Silk 2019

Appointed Recorder 2017

Nicola Howard KC

Barrister

Instructed in criminal defence cases. Predominantly in large scale complex fraud cases, bribery, money laundering, substantial confiscation and corporate offending.

A tremendously impressive practitioner.Chambers UK

Articles & Publications

  • Articles prepared for Counsel Magazine and Legal Week, Student Supplement (The Telegraph).
  • Financial Services Lawyer Association

Appointments

  • Recorder, South Eastern Circuit
  • Certified Fraud Examiner (ACFE)

Associated Work

  • Registered with Middle Temple as a Pupil Supervisor
  • Chairman of the Young Barristers Committee for England and Wales (2003)
  • Elected member of the Bar council
  • Member of the Criminal Bar Association
  • Speaker at the Commonwealth Law conference in Melbourne, Australia 2003
  • Delegate at the American bar Conference 2003
  • Speaker at the World Referral Bars conference in Capetown 2004
  • Speaker on Money laundering, Deferred Prosecution Agreement and S7 Bribery Act
  • Speaker at Cambridge University Economic Crime Symposium 2018

Professional Memberships

  • Proceeds of Crime Lawyers Association (POCLA)
  • Association of Regulatory and Disciplinary Lawyers (ARDL)
  • Member of the Female Fraud Forum (FFF)
  • The Fraud Lawyers Association (FLA) 
  • Member of the Criminal Bar Association
  • Member of the South Eastern Circuit
  • British Association for Sport and Law (BASL)
  • Women in Criminal Law