LawWorks Trustees

Board of Trustees:

Susan Adams

Susan is Head of Legal, West, at Standard Chartered Bank and manages lawyers aross Europe, the Middle East and Americas.  She has global responsibility for legal risk management for Standard Chartered.  Susan has previous charity board experience in a number of small London Charities.

Randal Barker

Randal is General Counsel and Company Secretary of Eurasian Natural Corporation PLC (ENRC).  He was previously Group Legal Director and Group Secretary at Resolution plc.  Prior to this, Mr Barker held positions at General Company and Lovells LLP.

Randal is a member of the Executive Committee of the GC 100 (The Association General Counsel and Company Secretaries of FTSE 100 companies) and leader of Executive Committee's Standing Group on Corporate Responsibility and Health.

Randal is a UK, US and Canadian-qualified lawyer and an alumnus of Harvard McGill University Facility of Law and INSEAD.

Claire Carless

Claire took a degree in Jurisprudence from Lincoln College, Oxford, and then attended the College of Law in Chester.  She had articles with Allison & Humphreys (who are now part of Field Fisher Waterhouse). 

She moved to Stephenson Harwood in London, and then spent three years with Stephenson Harwood & Lo in Hong Kong.  On her return to the UK, Clare left London for her first in-house role with National Power in Swindon, travelling the world bidding for and buying power stations.

Clare held various roles at National Power, culminating in Head of Legal for the International Division.  In 2000, she joined Vodafone at its HQ in Newbury. Her roles have included Head of Commercial Law, Head of Legal Marketing Team and now Legal Director, Commercial, managing a diverse, multi-national team based in the UK, Germany, Luxembourg, US and New Zealand. She spent nine months in New Zealand (2007/08), exploring new work and life opportunities. 

Clare is passionate about pro bono, horse-riding, and red wine and chocolate (together).  She is married with two teenage sons, a dog, five chickens, and six pigs.

Dinah Crystal OBE

Dinah started her professional career in private practice between1976 and1991.  She joined Manchester University in 1992 as Academic Admissions tutor for Undergraduate & Postgraduate Law courses. Dinah is responsible for setting up the Manchester University Legal Advice Centre in 2000 and the Legal Advice Centre in East Manchester in 2009. She is now Director of External Relations and Clinical Education as well as Academic Head of Undergraduate & Postgraduate Admissions. 

In addition to her commitment to LawWorks, Dinah is Chairman of North West Legal Support Trust; a member of the College of Law Pro Bono Advisory Board; a member of the Chester College of Law Advisory Board; a member of the Personal Support Unit Advisory Board and a Trustee of the National Youth Organisation.

Her specific research interests include Clinical Education, matters relating to ProBono work, Family Law, the Legal Profession and training for the profession.  Dinah's teaching areas are Legal Project Courses and Skills Programmes.

Julie Dickins

Julie Dickins trained and qualified as a solicitor at London law firm Rowe & Maw, where she specialised in property litigation for almost 20 years. Since 1998, she has been the partner responsible for UK pro bono and community work at first Rowe & Maw and now its successor firm, Mayer Brown, and devotes most of her time to co-ordinating these activities and organising charitable events.

Julie established and chairs the firm’s UK CSR committee and European pro bono committee, as well as helping to formulate policy on the firm’s global pro bono committee. Julie is an Advisory Council member of the Public Interest Law Institute.

Amanda Finlay CBE

Amanda Finlay recently retired from the Ministry of Justice. She is a Council Member of Justice, a member of Lord Bach's Public Legal Education Strategy Group, a public governor of Oxleas NHS Mental Health Foundation Trust and a member of the Civil Justice Council.

Amanda was until recently the MOJ Director responsible for legal services reform and for legal aid strategy. She led the arrangements to set up the Legal Services Board, headed the Fundamental Review of Legal Aid, chaired the Working Group which recommended reforms to the conduct of public law children cases, and negotiated a settlement of civil legal aid issues  with the Law Society following their successful Court of Appeal judgement.

During her time as Director responsible for family and administrative justice, Amanda introduced customer focussed changes for children and families experiencing relationship breakdown, instituted a review of delay in Children Act cases and took forward the programme of work to establish the Unified Tribunal Service. She worked jointly with the Home Office, the judiciary and lawyers to speed up asylum appeals and decisions.

Amanda led the work on the Human Rights Act in the Lord Chancellor's Department, working with human rights lawyers to ensure that the scheme of the Act was workable in the courts and leading ten all day "walkthroughs" to test out compatibility with judges, lawyers and human rights experts in courts from the magistrates up to the Court of Appeal. She was Secretary to Lord Woolf's Inquiry "Access to Justice", working with the judiciary, lawyers, academics  and lay people to devise improvements to the civil justice system.

Earlier in her career she was engaged in work to open up legal services to more competition, including work with the Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct on rights of audience applications from solicitors and employed lawyers, and the establishment of the Legal Services Ombudsman. Amanda was secretary to the Legal Aid Advisory Committee; worked with Richard White and Cyril Glasser (founder members of the Legal Action Group) on their report on unmet need for legal services in the 1970s and was engaged in the work to set up the Crown Court and the Court Service following the Courts Act 1971

Paul Gilbert

Paul Gilbert is the Chief Executive and founder of LBC Wise Counsel, a specialist management consultancy for law firms and in-house legal teams with a particular focus on change management, relationship management, strategic planning and personal development.

LBC Wise Counsel predominantly acts for in-house teams in the UK and Europe with some activity in North America too. In addition Paul regularly works with law firms at partner conferences, at training events and in a consulting capacity on topics such as business development and relationship management.

LBC Wise Counsel is the company behind the ground-breaking LBCambridge spring and summer schools for in-house lawyers at Queens’ College Cambridge.
For six years Paul was a Council Member of the England & Wales Law Society and was elected to the Society’s Main Management Board.

Paul now writes and lectures widely on the changing face of the legal profession, including the threats and the opportunities following the passing of legislation in the UK that will facilitate significant change in the way legal services are organised and delivered.

Previously Paul was General Counsel in two major UK financial services companies and he has also held positions as chairman and chief executive of the national in-house lawyers Commerce & Industry Group.
Paul is a successful author with four books (soon to be five) and over sixty published articles in the UK, Europe, The U.S. and South Africa.

Kara Irwin 

After qualifying as a lawyer in New York, Kara practised at Shearman & Sterling in New York and then in London, where she spearheaded the London office's pro bono projects.  She is now also qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and worked at BPP from January 2004, when she was brought in as the first fulltime Director of Pro Bono, establishing the BPP Pro Bono Centre in February 2004.  In 2010, Kara set up law firm Molnar International.

Kara sits on the Boards of Trustees for Advocates for International Development (A4ID) and LawWorks and on the Attorney General’s National Pro Bono Coordinating Committee.  Her professional interests include domestic and international pro bono programmes, legal literacy, mediation, human rights and clinical legal education.

Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson is Chief Executive of AdviceUK, the umbrella body for independent voluntary organisations that provide free advice. Many of AdviceUK’s 900+ member organisations provide a base or gateway for pro bono legal help. He has over thirty years’ experience of voluntary and community sector management and governance at local and national levels.

Steve is currently also a trustee of the Advice Services Alliance, the School for Social Entrepreneurs and the Access to Justice Foundation and he is a member of the Attorney General’s Pro Bono Committee.  

Robin Knowles CBE QC

Robin was called to the Bar in 1982 and practises at the Commercial and Chancery Bars. His particular specialisations are in financial law, contract law, company law (including insolvency), the law of professional negligence, and insurance law. He is regularly instructed in cases where there is a reputational aspect as well as a financial one. As well as appearing in the Commercial Court, the Chancery Division and the appellate courts, and overseas, he has represented parties at over 36 mediations.

From 2005 to 2007 Robin was Chairman of the Commercial Bar Association (COMBAR), the professional association of the Commercial Bar of England & Wales.

Robin was closely involved in work to re-cast the Commercial Court Guide with the advent of the Woolf Reforms. More recently he has served on the Aikens working party on “supercases” and commercial court procedure generally.

Robin sits part-time as a Deputy High Court Judge, and as a Recorder in the Crown Court. He is authorised to sit in the Chancery Division and in the Queen’s Bench Division. In the Crown Court he is authorised to hear cases involving serious sexual offences.

Robin also has a long-standing commitment to legal pro bono work, and to the coordination of that work. He was awarded the CBE for services to pro bono legal services in the 2006 New Years Honours List. Among other pro bono roles and in addition to his commitment to LawWorks, he is the Chairman of the Bar Pro Bono Unit, a member of the Advisory Council of Advocates for International Development, and a member of the Attorney General’s National Pro Bono Coordinating Committee (and of its International Committee).

Robin chairs two legal advice projects serving the diverse community in the East End of London. He also chaired the cross-sector working party on the establishment of the Access to Justice Foundation.

Robin is a member of the Bar Council’s General Management Committee. He is a Bencher of Middle Temple, and also a member of Gray’s Inn.
Outside the law, Robin is the Chairman of Trustees of Richard House Children’s Hospice, which was London’s first hospice for children who are unlikely to live into adulthood.

Kathryn Ludlow

Kathryn is a litigation partner at Linklaters. She joined the firm as a trainee solicitor in 1986, qualified into the litigation department in 1988  and became a partner in 1997. Her career has involved two short spells in Hong Kong and a great deal of variety in contentious work, working for banks, corporates and accountancy firms on major disputes. Her work has often taken her to interesting foreign jurisdictions including places as far afield as Mauritius, Korea and the Sudan.  

As well as doing commercial litigation work for clients, since early 2009 Kathryn has been the firm's Global Pro Bono Partner looking after the overall firm's pro bono work and strategy. As well as being a trustee of LawWorks she has for many years been a trustee of the RCJ Citizens Advice Bureau and is on the Advisory Board to Advocates for International Development. 

Paul Newdick

Paul is a partner at Clyde & Co where he has worked since 1982. He leads Clyde & Co's Employment team and heads up the firm’s Dispute Resolution Group.  Paul chairs on the firm’s Community Council, which co-ordinates the firm's charitable giving, pro bono activities and community volunteering.

Paul is a founding trustee and current chair of LawWorks.  His involvement in pro bono started when he set up a student clinic at Leeds in the 1970’s.  Since then he has volunteered at NCCL (now Liberty), North Kensington Law Centre, Tottenham Law Centre, Peckham CAB and the Royal Courts of Justice CAB.  On the organisational side of pro bono, prior to helping to set up the Solicitors Pro Bono Group (now LawWorks), Paul founded the Cablinx initiative with Citizens Advice and sat on the Management Committee at Tottenham Law Centre.

Paul received a CBE for his legal pro bono work in the 2008 Queen's Birthday honours.

Mark Nichols

Mark Nichols has been a tax partner at CMS Cameron McKenna for the last 14 years.  He advises on all aspects of UK and international commercial tax matters, including both tax planning and transactional/structuring advice. 

As well as being a member of the executive committee of the pan-European CMS tax group, Mark does significant work on international hotels, real estate and private equity.  Mark regularly advises on cross-border tax structuring in conjunction with his colleagues within the CMS tax group.

Mark has for many years been a member and more recently, chair of the CMS Cameron McKenna CSR Committee.  He has been a trustee of LawWorks for five years and his firm provides pro bono tax and other support to LawWorks as well as participating in pro bono activities promoted by LawWorks and others.  Mark is a member of the CMS European Board and is championing the pro bono and CSR cause for CMS across Europe.

Bob Nightingale MBE 

Bob is Chief Executive of the London Legal Support Trust and a Trustee of Lawworks, The Access to Justice Foundation and the RCJ Advice Bureau. He was Co-founder of “Prisoners Abroad” in 1978 and Chair of the Law Centres Federation from 1998 to 2002.

Bob has over 35 years’ experience of running legal advice centres and “scrounging favours from lawyers on behalf of the community”.
Bob’s work has always entailed developing services using a mixture of paid specialist staff and extensive pro bono support. Bob originated the “Pro Bono Protocol” and instigated the Lawworks Clinics service. He was awarded an MBE in 2000 for “Services to Justice” and the Lawyer lifetime achievement award in 2002.

Since then  Bob has created and developed the London Legal Support Trust and its London Legal sponsored walk, helped to develop similar trusts across England and Wales and assisted with the development of the Access to Justice Foundation.

Sandie Okoro

Sandie is Group General Counsel at Baring Asset Management, a global asset management company which is part of the MassMutual Financial Group.  She manages a  team of lawyers that are based in London, Boston and Hong Kong, and she is responsible for the management of Barings legal risk across the globe. She is also a director of Baring International Investment Limited. 

Prior to joining Barings in May 2007,  Sandie  was Head of Legal for Corporate Services at Schroders. In her spare time, Sandie is also Foundation Governor at La Retraite Girls school in London, Chair of the CLO (Chief Legal Officers) Programme, a Director of International Lawyers for Africa and a trustee of LawWorks.

For four years up until 2006, Sandie was a non-executive director of Family Mosaic, a London based housing association.   She was one of The Lawyer magazine’s Hot 100 lawyers in 2005 and was also a shortlisted nominee for the In-house Lawyer of the Year at The Lawyer 2009 Awards.  Sandie mentors young aspiring lawyers by providing bespoke one-off one-to-one mentoring.

Jonathan Pearl

Jonathan is currently Corporate Vice President & General Counsel of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB.Sony Ericsson, a 50:50 joint venture between Sony Corporation and LM Ericsson, is the fourth largest mobile phone handset maker by value in the world with 9,000 employees and a turnover of around US$12 billion a year.
Jonathan is Company Secretary of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, and a member of the company’s Executive Committee.

Jonathan is responsible for all Sony Ericsson’s IPR and Legal issues and has other functions, such as Compliance, Anti-Counterfeit, Trade Affairs and Export Control, reporting to him.

Jonathan heads a Global team of 62 professionals located in Sweden, France, Germany, U.K., U.S.A., Singapore, Japan and China. Before he joined Sony Ericsson Jonathan spent 12 years working at Sony Electronics Europe, and prior to that he was with Apple Computer.  Jonathan trained as a UK Solicitor and worked in private practice as a company commercial solicitor at Bates Wells & Braithwaite, the country’s leading Charity lawyers, 1988-1990.

Jonathan is married and has three children.  He lives in Queens Park, in West London.

Jacky Sellers

Jacky Sellers has been a volunteer on the individual and mediation projects of LawWorks since April 2005, and she joined the board of trustees in July 2009. 
She qualified as a solicitor in 1989 and worked for Cameron McKenna in its litigation department for 6 years, before taking a career break.  Jackie undertook a two year LLM in Labour Law at the LSE before joining LawWorks. 

Elliot Shear

Elliot Shear is a Partner in the Corporate Group at Nabarro LLP.  He is also Head of Nabarro's Pro Bono and Volunteering team.  Elliot specialises in mergers and acquisitions for public and private companies and undertakes a full range of transactional and advisory work for coporate clients and financial institutions.  His experience also includes advising on corporate law, flotations and joint ventures.  Elliot's sector expertise is particularly in the defence industry and financial services.

Elliot was included in the "The Lawyer" magazine's "Hot 100" lawyers of 2009.  He is also contributing authour of the book "A Practitioner's Guide to Directors' Duties and Responsibilities" (4th Ed.), which is the leading text in the area.  Elliot's role heading pro bono and volunteering at Nabarro has led to the establishment of a highly successful weekly advice clinic with IPR under LawWorks' guidance.

Roger Wiltshire

Roger is Chief Counsel and member of the Programmes and Support Board at BAE Systems.  BAE Systems is a global company engaged in development, delivery and support of advanced defence and aerospace systems in air, land and sea. 

Roger manages a central hub team of lawyers based in Farnborough that also supports international operating groups and central functions such as finance and treasury, procurement, commicial and engineering.  Legal work of the central team includes employment, litigation, property and knowledge management.

Roger's expertise includes banking, corporate finance, aircraft leasing and financing, pensions and PFI.