Central London Lawyer Feb 2026 by Benham Publishing Limited

The Full Picture: Women, Law, Leadership and the Lives We Lead

International Committee at Palermo

The SQE at Four Years

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Winter 2026 © Benham Publishing Ltd.

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The President’s Foreword

WINTER 2026

As we begin a new year and approach International Women's Month, I am delighted to introduce this Winter edition of the Central London Lawyer. We are lucky to welcome our guest editor, Mandy Rawlinson, whose note in this edition poses an important and timely question: not simply how women progress, but how we sustain.

Mandy's reflections have touched on a particularly sensitive topic for me. I am a mother of two boys and have only recently returned to work after maternity leave. It has quickly become apparent to me that the world of work was not set up for a family where both parents work, and women are fighting against the tide to simply survive, never mind to thrive! Juggling childcare and work is a marathon, not a sprint. Good policies and supportive leadership are necessary to go the distance, and to prevent parents from burning out from logistical and emotional challenges. I am grateful to Mandy for curating an edition that expands the conversation we must keep having.

Alongside this, we showcase the remarkable work of our committees and contributors across the Society. Our International Committee brings a series of updates, including Julia’s insights, Paula’s introduction as our new Vice Chair, a general committee update from Coral, and a rich set of reflections from Palermo—Sara and Alex’s visit report and Alex’s interview with a Palermo lawyer. We are also pleased to include a contribution from Mariona and the Barcelona Bar, strengthening the international links that remain such an important part of WHLS’s identity.

Guest Editor’s Note

As we mark International Women’s Day, this edition invites us to pause and ask a more searching question than ‘how are women progressing’? Instead, we ask: how are women sustaining?

We are at a moment when conversations about women’s progress are rightly becoming more sophisticated. It is no longer enough to ask how women reach senior roles; we must also ask what it takes to remain there, and at what cost.

The legal and corporate professions have long rewarded resilience, intellectual rigour, and availability. Yet many of the realities that shape women’s careers - motherhood, caregiving, health, hormonal change, and the need for wellbeing in order to remain effective - have historically been treated as peripheral rather than fundamental. This edition challenges that separation. It brings together leadership, law, wellbeing, and lived experience because these are not parallel conversations; they are part of the same discussion.

Across these pages, contributors explore how careers can be sustained, not just accelerated. Topics such as self-care, retreating, shared parental responsibilities, evolving maternity protections, menopause in the workplace, and women’s health are examined not as

We also feature an article on the Day of Endangered Lawyers, a sober reminder of the ongoing importance of solidarity within the global legal community. Closer to home, James Catchpole provides a valuable piece on the SQE and the implications of the most recent report—an area of continuing interest and concern for many of our members, practitioners and aspiring solicitors alike. The pass rates of the SQE are disappointingly low, and it is vital that we continue to hold the SRA to account by highlighting what needs to improve.

The cover image of this edition—the Fearless Girl statue in New York— reflects the spirit of this issue: unapologetically forward looking, symbolic of the courage it takes not only to enter the profession, but to remain, evolve and lead within it. As President, I continue to be inspired by the energy of our committees, the generosity of our contributors, and the engagement of our community. My thanks go to Anita and the editorial team, to Mandy for her thoughtful stewardship of this edition, and to all who have contributed their time and insight.

I hope this edition encourages you to pause, reflect, and—as Mandy puts it—consider not only progress, but sustainability. I look forward to seeing many of you at upcoming Society events and to continuing these conversations throughout the year.

Suzanna Eames

President, Westminster & Holborn Law Society

individual coping strategies, but as structural considerations; ones that influence performance, retention, and long-term impact.

As a lawyer, executive and author I see first-hand how decision-making at the top is shaped by the assumptions we carry about work, commitment, and success. As a mother of young children, I also see where those assumptions no longer hold. My personal project, supported by the great Baroness Verma, You Don’t Belong Here, was written from this intersection—questioning why so many capable women internalise strain as personal inadequacy, rather than recognising their impact, potential and the need for systems to evolve alongside talent.

International Women’s Day offers an important moment to reflect not only on representation, but on design: how we design careers, workplaces, policies, and leadership expectations that acknowledge the full reality of modern daily lives. The voices in this edition make a compelling case that progress is not about lowering standards, but about redefining sustainability.

My hope is that this issue prompts both reflection and action—encouraging leaders, organisations, and policymakers to think differently about how our workforces build careers that endure.

For readers who would like to explore these themes further:

My book, You don’t belong here, is available via Amazon, Waterstones, and other major book retailers. I also share ongoing reflections on leadership, motherhood, and sustainable careers on Instagram @mandyrawlinsonofficial.

For those seeking a deeper commitment to their wellbeing and sustained success, I urge you to take a look at the article from Marianne Bell in this edition. Marianne curates luxury international retreats for women who need space to step back, reset, and think differently about what comes next. Further details can be found via my social channels.

Suzanna Eames

WHLS OFFICERS

Suzanna Eames President

Suzanna is a Senior Associate at Farrer & Co specialising in a broad range of private family law matters, including divorce, complex financial remedy cases, children matters, financial claims to support a child, jurisdictional disputes and pre and post-nuptial agreements. Suzanna has a long track record of supporting her legal community, having been a part of WHLS since 2018. In 2021-2022, Suzanna was Chair of the Junior Lawyers Division of the Law Society; she is particularly passionate about supporting the junior members of the legal profession. Outside of the law, Suzanna is a mum of two young boys and spends more time than she ever expected at soft play.

Amanda Lathia Vice President

Amanda is a senior associate at law firm, Orr Litchfield, specialising in commercial and corporate law. She is passionate about finding business solutions for clients, from assisting on company law issues, to drafting or reviewing contracts to helping a business prepare for a future sale. Amanda joined WHLS in 2018, was co-chair of the Junior Lawyers Division from 2022 to 2024 and is excited to be Vice President of the society for 2025.

Aneesha Bhunjun Deputy Vice President

Aneesha is a digital dispute resolution expert, specialising in resolving complex disputes in England & Wales and internationally. She also focuses on AI regulation in mediation and conflictre solution, alongside advocating for women’s rights in the judiciary. As Deputy Vice President, Aneesha is passionate about promoting diversity and equality within the legal profession. Shechannels her expertise into her work with the WHLS, supporting its members and driving positive change within the legal system. She is honoured and proud to serve as the Deputy Vice President and looks forward to making a lasting impact in this role. She is honoured and proud to serve as the Deputy Vice President and looks forward to making a lasting impact in this role.

Tanya Arackal Vice-Treasurer

Tanya is currently a second year Trainee Solicitor at Dawson Cornwell. Tanya has worked on cases across the full spectrum of family law, including matrimonial finance and international children law. She has undertaken her own advocacy in the London County Courts, successfully obtaining non-molestation orders for vulnerable clients. She is a member of the YRes division of Resolution and a mentor with Lawyers Who Care, mentoring care-experienced aspiring lawyers. She was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s award from the University of Leeds for contribution to equality and diversity for starting her own organisation which provided a platform for women of colour. Tanya also created and leads the Aura Collective, a non-profit organisation that supports, through creative workshops, individuals who have experienced violence and abuse.

Lucy Clarke Co-Secretary

Lucy is a newly qualified solicitor specialising in clinical negligence at JMW Solicitors LLP. She works on a wide range of claimant side clinical negligence matters arising from treatment that has gone wrong or a failure to treat that has resulted in severe injury. Lucy has been a co-secretary of the Westminster and Holborn Law society since 2024. She is looking forward to working with the new officers and the exciting year ahead!

Noaman Malik Co-Secretary

Noaman Malik is a Trainee Solicitor at Farrer & Co. He studied History at the University of Glasgow, spending a year abroad at the University of Alabama, before completing the PGDL and an LLM in Legal Practice (SQE) at the University of Law. His previous experience includes working as a paralegal for an ultra-high-net-worth client on a politically sensitive and complex $2 billion civil action, working at a hedge fund, and interning at the Department for Business and Trade. He also serves as a Family magistrate.

Anita Winsome Editor in Chief

Anita completed her LLM specialising in Comparative & International Dispute Resolution from Queen Mary University of London. She is a recipient of the SEED (Student Enhanced Engagement & Development) Award 2023 from the Humanities & Social Sciences department, QMUL. Her interests include domestic & international arbitration, competition law & intellectual property rights. She is a qualified lawyer in India and a licensed member (Advocate) of the Bar Council. Her favourite pastime activities include discovering beautiful cafes, exploring museums, and strolling around the royal parks near South Kensington.

Nicola Wainwright Immediate Past President

Nicola Wainwright is a specialist clinical negligence solicitor with more than 20 years’ experience. She is a Partner and Head of Clinical Negligence-London at JMW Solicitors LLP. Nicola specialises exclusively in clinical negligence claims for patients arising from medical treatment that has gone wrong, or from a failure to provide medical treatment. She has expertise in a wide range of claims, but particularly those that are complex or that result in severe, life changing injuries. Nicola has been ranked in Chambers & Partners legal directory for 14 years. Nicola qualified as a solicitor in 1997 after training with Pictons. She is a member of the Law Society Clinical Negligence Accreditation Panel and an Association of Personal Injury (APIL) Senior Litigator. She is also a member of FOCIS (Forum of Complex Injury Solicitors), and the Association of Women Solicitors, London (AWSL)

WHLS EDITORIAL TEAM

Kene Onyeka Allison

Kene is an in-house solicitor at Mizuho International plc, a Japanese investment bank. She is dual-qualified in England & Wales and Nigeria. Her areas of specialisation are Debt Capital Markets and Derivatives. She volunteers in different capacities with different organisations with the aim of improving ethnic and minority diversity.

Sarah Bradd

Sarah is a current trainee at Charles Russell Speechlys and has been a member of CWHLS since 2019. She enjoys contributing to the Central London Lawyer magazine and assisting the editorial team. In her free time, Sarah enjoys going on holiday to explore new places, eating at restaurants and watching films at the cinema.

Anita Winsome

Ella Atkins

Ella is currently an Associate at a PR and public affairs agency in London. A graduate of the University of Bristol, she has gained experience across the legal and policy sectors, having completed placements at DLA Piper, Dixon Ward Solicitors, and the Centre for Social Justice think tank. In addition, Ella is also a producer of Politics Inside Out, a podcast that lifts the lid on how Westminster really works.

Future Events

We are planning further International Legal Evenings so please look out for information on the WHLS website Westminster & Holborn Law Society and social media. If you have any suggestions of events which would interest you, please let us know by contacting cwhlawsoc@gmail.com.

As WHLS is a member of the Federation of European Bar Associations, members are welcome at their conferences, and these can be found on the FBE website www.fbe.org The summer Congress will be held in Bucharest 11th -13th June. As well as conference meetings, there are always opportunities to tour the city and to attend a Festival Dinner.

We are also planning to hold an online session with Bar Associations twinned with WHLS and all members would be most welcome to sign up. Once the dates are confirmed this will appear on the website, social media and by email. ■

WHLS International Committee Update

The International Committee had an extremely active 2025 and I’m extraordinarily grateful to everyone who contributed to the fantastic success of those events, particularly the London Legal Links visit from our twinned Bar Associations. The events in the final part of the year are discussed in the subsequent pages, in particular, a fascinating visit to Palermo in Sicily.

2026 promises to continue with as many activities, including international visits. All members are welcome to become involved; it is not necessary to be on the committee to join a delegation. Please bear in mind that everyone, including committee members, take responsibility for their own travel arrangements and bear their own expenses. ■

Other News from the International Committee

In our ‘Meet the Team’ pages in the Autumn magazine there was a profile of Alex Kowalska, who in a subsequent committee meeting, agreed to accept the role of Co-Chair with me. It’s always great to have a change of roles with new energy and ideas. Alex has lots of both and so I am delighted to share the role with her.

As Alex was vacating her previous role of Vice-Chair, another committee member, Paula Piquer Ruz, agreed to take her place. Paula will be Vice Chair with Sara Chandler. ■

Coral Hill

Co-Chair International Committee Westminster & Holborn Law Society

Bucharest Palace of Parliament

Caru' cu Bere is a well-known bar and restaurant with traditional entertainment

Paula Piquer Ruz

WHLS International Committee in Palermo

In November 2025 the International Committee of the Westminster & Holborn Law Society took part in a legal exchange with the Palermo Bar Association. The event was organised by Michele Calantroppo, the vice President of the FBE, who hosted us and showed us the beauty, history, and legal culture of Palermo. We also had the pleasure of meeting Luciano Termini, the vice President of the Palermo Bar.

During our visit, we toured the local tribunal, observed a hearing, met with local lawyers, and discussed key topics such as current challenges facing the profession, routes to qualification, and the differences between our legal systems.

We also had the opportunity to visit the offices of Judges Borsellino and Falcone, who were the judges who took on the Mafia. They were both assassinated by the Mafia. Their office is a museum about the Mafia trials. We also visited the Palazzo Chiaramonte Steri, which once served as a prison during the Spanish Inquisition, a powerful and moving experience.

We look forward to welcoming colleagues from Palermo to London soon. ■

Alex Kowalska, Professor Sara Chandler KC (Hon) International Committee

No laughing matter: Lawyers and the rule of law under threat

We have all come across a good joke about lawyers and the long-established unflattering perception of the legal profession. But the truth is far more complex: around the world, lawyers are becoming targets because they remain at the frontline of safeguarding the rule of law and protecting human rights.

In 2025, the Law Society’s Lawyers at Risk programme published its tracker. They recorded 53 actions relating to 21 countries with most of the programme’s interventions relating to:

• arbitrary arrest or detention (74%)

• harassment, threats, and violence (50%)

• unfair trial (47%)

• disciplinary measures such as wrongful disbarment (36%)1

In another report2, the Law Society stated that across all regions globally, there is a pattern of criminalisation, which is:

“weaponising the criminal justice system and disciplinary procedures to prevent lawyers from providing effective legal representation, silence dissent, and undermine the independence of the legal profession.” 3

One can assert from this data that threats to lawyers are part of a series of warning signs highlighting the deterioration of the rule of law. Other red flags include: the enforced co-optation of judiciaries; the dismantling of justice systems; the disassembly of the protections given to judges, prosecutors and defence counsels; and the defunding of legal aid, to name but a few. Once in place, these impairments are difficult to reverse. Of particular significance is the pervasive erosion of public confidence and trust in public institutions, which would take years to rebuild.

These warning signs are further confirmed by the findings of the World Justice Project (WJP) which, in their Global Rule of Law Index 2025, stressed that for the 8th consecutive year the rule of law has ‘weakened in more countries than those in which it improved.’4 The WJP report outlines that the number of countries experiencing deterioration in their rule of law scores has been increasing sharply since 2024.5 The WJP report also underscores that the indicators, which are measuring the judiciary’s checks on executive power and judicial independence, suggest that judiciaries are losing ground to executive overreach with rising political interference across justice systems.6 It emphasises that:

“While building resilient rule of law institutions can be a long and iterative process, dismantling them can happen rapidly.”7

A fundamental factor driving this rule of law regression is the rise in authoritarianism. Authoritarian leaders consolidate their power by dismantling checks and balances, closing civil society spaces, subordinating public institutions, and openly eroding the rule of law. This strategy inevitably leads to social and political disenfranchisement, which only a few privileged ones will benefit from.

In this challenging context we all have a role to play as lawyers in ensuring that legal principles such as accountability, justice, and the rule of law are properly upheld and protected against arbitrary power. In that regard, the work of the Day of the Endangered Lawyer (DEL) Foundation8 becomes significant in raising awareness about the situation of lawyers threatened in the exercise of their duties. Every year, the DEL Foundation selects a jurisdiction to draw attention to and this is always marked on 24 January.9 For 2026, following serious concerns of escalating attacks against lawyers, including executive orders targeting law firms, harassment, political reprisals and discriminatory measures undermining the independence of the legal profession, the DEL Foundation designated the USA as the focus country.

The Westminster and Holborn Law Society’s International Committee (WHLS) organised a DEL event, hosted by David Greene (of Edwin Coe LLP) and presided by Tony Fisher (of the Law Society’s Human Rights Committee), with the participation of over 40 WHLS members. The line up of speakers was impressive: Symone Gaasbeek-Wielinga, DEL

Foundation’s co-founder; Dr Debra Long, Law Society’s international policy manager; Walter H. White Jr., ABA’s Center for Human Rights co-founder; and Michelle Jacobson, US lawyer and partner at Fragomen LLP.

Symone Gaasbeek-Wielinga started her presentation by sharing the story behind the creation of the DEL Foundation. In 1990, both her and her husband, Hans Gaasbeek, went on a fact-finding mission to the Philippines, a journey that was transformational. They witnessed Philippine lawyers, undeterred by threats, doing incredibly brave work under extraordinary circumstances. They began to reflect on how they could support those efforts, and those reflections led to the creation of the Day of the Endangered Lawyers. She also explained the DEL Foundation’s rationale behind the selection process for the chosen jurisdiction - it is based on the concerns within that jurisdiction of reported attacks (direct and recurrent) against the legal profession. Once chosen, a comprehensive report is compiled. DEL Coalition10 reviews and then signs the report.

Dr Debra Long focused her presentation on the findings of the DEL Foundation’s report. She underlined that the choice of the US is not a denunciation of the country as being uniquely abusive. Rather, it is a recognition that no jurisdiction is immune from rule of law backsliding. Even long-established legal systems can drift into dangerous territory when political leadership begins to consider independent legal professionals as enemies, instead of treating them as essential pillars of justice. Since January 2025, pressures on the US legal profession have intensified dramatically and quickly. Lawyers representing politically sensitive clients have reported a heightened scrutiny, harassment, and professional retaliation. Even large well-respected law firms have become targets of direct executive pressure. She warned that what is happening in the US today is not a series of isolated incidents - it is an orchestrated assault on the independence of the legal profession.

Walter H. White Jr built his presentation on two key aspects: the position of the current US administration, and its attacks against certain elements of the US legal profession. He firstly provided an overview on Executive actions against certain Universities; US states, specifically California, Oregon, Illinois, Maine and Minnesota; and certain communities such as African-Americans and Hispanics. He shared his concerns about direct challenges to the US constitution, international law, and the rule of law, all of which, as Walter stressed, comes off the back of the announcement that the sitting US President might be seeking another term, the US military intervention in Venezuela, and the wielding of tariffs as an economic weapon. Walter’s analysis asserted that:

“this Administration has elicited a coordinated campaign, undermining the independence of the legal profession in the US through various executive actions and political pressures, as part of an overt effort to deny people of the United States their Constitutional rights.”

He signposted to the fact that several US law firms have been targeted by the current US administration, stating that there was no indication that these firms had committed any ethical violations or malpractice. He went further and argued that the nature of these unfounded claims from this current US administration confirms that the executive orders are aimed at exerting some form of retribution. He emphasised that by bringing bogus litigation, the current Department of Justice is being weaponised and pressurising litigants to spend millions of dollars defending themselves.

Michelle Jacobsen began her speech by focusing on the situation of US immigration lawyers. She emphasised that they are not simply having to navigate difficult policy shifts, but they are also practising in an environment where legal advocacy is being delegitimised. She said that over the past year they have seen ramped-up ICE11 enforcement across major US cities including Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Portland. These enforcement actions are broader in scope, more militarised in appearance, and increasingly carried out in mixed-status communities and locations where US citizens, lawful permanent residents, and undocumented individuals live side by side. The result is not targeted enforcement against discrete individuals, it is community-wide disruption:

L to R: Lizzette Robleto de Howarth, Coral Hill, Alex Kowalska. L to R:David Greene, Walter White Jnr, Symone Gaasbeek, Michelle Jackson (on screen), Tony Fisher, Dr Debra Long.

“it’s a sobering indication for me to understand that lawyers in the US are beginning to share a similar history to my attorney colleagues in Latin America, as we see increasing intimidation tactics designed to silence us, curtailing access to representation, and extreme measures to suspend access to justice for all immigrants, including children who were otherwise seeking to apply for asylum in the United States.”

Michelle was very clear in her message:

“a functioning legal system depends on the ability of lawyers to advocate without intimidation, retaliation, or obstruction. When legal representation is underminedwhether through restricted access to clients, hostile enforcement environments, or public vilification - the integrity of the system itself erodes.”

What can lawyers do?

• In this complex domestic and global landscape, it is imperative for legal practitioners to remain united and to take actions in support of their fellow lawyers, not only in the US but around the world.

• Develop clear and objective analysis to determine what is the driving force behind these attacks, so that these can be tackled. This means building the necessary evidence with

1. Intervention tracker 2025, the law society https://www.Lawsociety.Org.Uk/topics/international/intervention-tracker

thorough documentation and reporting. As Symone said: ‘Start by taking constructive action, then take a step back and observe what is created’.

• Create a space for direct and active advocacy; continue to build a wider global community of legal professionals; develop strategic relationships; and maintain communication with other bar associations and organisations.

• Ensure that international law and human rights are protected and strengthened rather than eroded. It is vital that lawyers stand firm behind domestic and international institutions. As Michelle said: ‘It takes very little to destroy, but it is difficult to rebuild institutions’.

The recommendations of the DEL Foundation report can be found here: https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/contact-or-visit-us/press-office/press-releases/ new-report-international-day-of-the-endangered-lawyer-2026#:~:text=To%20 commemorate%20the%20Day%20of,report%20spotlighting%20the%20United%20 States. ■

By Dr Lizzette Robleto

de Howarth

2. “When lawyers are silenced: how restrictions on lawyer’s expression undermines rights, justice, and democracy”, the law society 2025 file:///c:/users/lrobl/downloads/the%20law%20society%20report%20freedom%20of%20expression%20january%202026.Pdf

3. Pg.4 “When lawyers are silenced: how restrictions on lawyer’s expression undermines rights, justice, and democracy”, the law society 2025 file:///c:/users/lrobl/downloads/the%20law%20society%20report%20freedom%20of%20expression%20january%202026.Pdf

4. Pg. 34, Wjp rule of law index 2025 https://worldjusticeproject.Org/rule-of-law-index/downloads/wjpindex2025.Pdf

5. Pg. 34, WJP Rule of Law Index 2025 https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/downloads/WJPIndex2025.pdf

6. Pg. 34, WJP Rule of Law Index 2025 https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/downloads/WJPIndex2025.pdf

7. Pg. 34, WJP Rule of Law Index 2025 https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/downloads/WJPIndex2025.pdf

8. The Foundation is run by the Coalition of the International Day of the Endangered Lawyer. https://dayoftheendangeredlawyer.eu/

9. The 24th of January was chosen to be the annual International Day of the Endangered Lawyer because on 24 January 1977, three extreme-right terrorists stormed into the offices of labour lawyers working for the trade union

fire murdering three of the lawyers, Enrique Valdelvira Ibáñez,

that expresses solidarity with the legal profession. https://dayoftheendangeredlawyer.eu/24th-january/

https://www.ice.gov/

Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) in the Calle Atocha in Madrid. They opened

Luis Javier Benavides Orgaz and Francisco Javier Sauquillo. They also killed a law student and an administrator. The Atocha Massacre was a turning-point in Spain’s transition to democracy. Marking the Day of the Endangered Lawyer is not only to raise awareness of those threats, but also to develop joint actions

10. The DEL Coalition is made up of 40 lawyers organisations and bar associations worldwide.

11. ICE – US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security

Meet the TeamJulia Splavska Founder of Intelligence & Influence

1. Why did you join the International Committee?

I joined the International Committee because some of the most valuable professional conversations happen outside formal settings, between people who work across jurisdictions and face similar issues in different systems.

I also joined because Ukrainian lawyers are still not sufficiently visible internationally. This is a practical issue. Trust is not built overnight, and the relationships formed now will shape how Ukraine is represented in international legal work in the years ahead.

2. What is your professional background and current role?

I am a qualified lawyer in Ukraine and previously worked as an employment lawyer in the UK. Building my own public presence in our regulated (and highly scrutinised) profession gave me a clear understanding of how visibility needs to be handled to maintain authority. That experience led me to found Intelligence & Influence, where I advise companies and senior professionals on using LinkedIn with judgement and control. I am often brought in when leaders want to be visible but are unsure what is safe, appropriate, or worth saying publicly.

3. What do you enjoy most about being part of the Committee?

What I value most about the Committee is how people show up for each other in small but meaningful ways. I remember a visit to Poland, when we went to a church together. I only had a card with me, and could not buy a candle to light for my family’s health. I did not say anything, but one of my colleagues noticed and quietly handed me one.

It was a small moment, but it stayed with me. It reflected something I value deeply in professional environments: awareness, discretion, and support without performance. The Committee works because people take responsibility for each other and for the work. Ideas are not discussed for interest’s sake. Someone owns them. That is why initiatives such as Legal Links and Legal Evenings exist, and why trust builds quickly within the group.

4. What is your best international experience?

One of the most defining experiences in my career was working on a high-profile matter for Ukraine, where Hogan Lovells acted as lead counsel. My work on transactional and financing documents showed me how information intended to remain technical can later become public and scrutinised, and how inconsistencies can create issues. That experience shaped how I think about alignment, disclosure, and what should, and should not, be said publicly.

5. What advice would you give to lawyers interested in becoming more active internationally?

My advice is simple. Do not wait to be invited. Today, LinkedIn makes it possible to connect with lawyers across jurisdictions in a way that simply did not exist before. You do not need a perfect moment or a formal introduction to start building an international profile. What matters more is curiosity, initiative, and the discipline to use visibility with judgement. ■

Julia Splavska

Meet the TeamPaula Piquer Ruz

Co Vice

Chair

of the International Committee

1. Why did you join the International Committee?

International work has always been at the core of my professional and personal identity. Having qualified abroad and built my career across two jurisdictions, I have a strong appreciation for both the opportunities and the challenges that come with cross-border practice. The Committee provides the opportunity to connect with lawyers who share that perspective and experience. What particularly drew me to the Committee is that it goes beyond simply networking. It is a platform through which you can contribute to meaningful initiatives that are genuinely inclusive of international lawyers, ensuring that international practitioners feel supported, understood and represented.

2. What is your professional background and current role?

I qualified as a lawyer in Spain and shortly thereafter I relocated to London, where I cross-qualified as a solicitor and have been practicing for over 16 years. I work as a dual qualified solicitor at a boutique law firm that not only specialises in international work but also actively supports and embraces having lawyers within its team who, like me, were not born and raised in the UK. I specialise in international family law, advising clients on complex cross-border matters in all aspects of family law. My work regularly involves coordinating advice with lawyers in different jurisdictions to achieve effective outcomes for clients. This is where being part of international associations becomes particularly valuable, as it allows you build connections with professionals around the world with whom you may later collaborate.

3. What do you enjoy most about being part of the Committee?

I would say that the diversity of professional and personal backgrounds within the committee is what I enjoy most. Our regular meetings and events provide also a genuine opportunity to engage with solicitors specialising in areas of law very different from my own, which makes our discussions very stimulating. Each member brings a different experience of legal practice and career development. I particularly value being part of a committee that is actively supporting legal professionals in London, which allows me to remain closely engaged with the legal profession in England, while at the same time contributing to the strengthening of legal connections internationally through our work with bar associations across Europe.

4. What has been your most memorable moment with the committee so far?

One of my most memorable moments with the Committee was the legal visit to the Barcelona Bar Association in 2022 with which we have a twinning agreement. As this is the bar with which I am registered in Spain, the experience was particularly significant on a personal level. It allowed me to connect with colleagues in the jurisdiction where I first qualified and to strengthen professional relationships that I continue to maintain today. It was a clear example of the value that international collaboration and of how the Committee can create bridges between legal communities across borders.

5. What was your best international experience?

It would be difficult to choose just one. My most valuable professional international experiences have come through attending and participating in international conferences. These events have allowed me to build long-lasting professional and personal relationships with lawyers from around the world, many of whom I now regularly collaborate with on cross-border cases. These experiences reinforce the importance of trust, cultural awareness, and personal connection

in international practice. They have also broadened my perspective, not only as a lawyer but as a professional working in a truly global environment and have been instrumental in shaping my career in international family law.

6. What advice would you give to lawyers interested in becoming more active internationally?

My advice would be to be curious and proactive. Attend international conferences, join committees or international associations that align with your interests and where you feel you can contribute, and do not be afraid to reach out to lawyers in other jurisdictions, even if this is through social media. I would also encourage lawyers to actively engage in collaborative projects such as contributing to publications together with professionals qualified in other jurisdictions. This not only strengthens professional relationships but also deepens the visibility within the international legal community. Building an international practice is as much about relationships as it is about legal knowledge. Language skills and cultural awareness are invaluable assets. The legal profession is increasingly global, and lawyers who are willing to engage beyond their borders will find, in my experience, both professional and personal rewards.. ■

Paula Piquer Ruz

Solicitor at IMD Solicitors

Interview with Michele Calantropo

Michele Calantropo is the 2nd Vice-president of the European Bars Federation and an avvocato in the Palermo Bar Association.

Alex: Thank you for agreeing to the interview. I cannot imagine a better setting for our conversation than sunny Palermo! I am really interested in learning about your legal journey. Did you always know you wanted to become a lawyer?

Michele: Yes, after attending law school, I felt a strong desire to pursue this profession. I believe that, in the end, a lawyer is truly the one who defends clients' rights. For me, the aspect of defence was par-ticularly significant.

Alex: Did you always know you wanted to defend and represent people?

Michele: Representing people in court is often rewarding, particularly when advocating for those challenging powerful entities like corporations. Defending individuals can be the most effective way to uphold everyone’s rights.

Alex: Is it difficult to become a lawyer, an “avvocato” in Italy? What is the route to the profession?

Michele: The route involves five years of law school, followed by 18 months of training. After one year, you can defend clients in lower courts, but always under the supervision of the lawyers you are training with. After 18 months, you must pass the Bar exam.

Alex: And do you need a law degree?

Michele: Yes. You need to complete a five-year law degree.

Alex: I have heard there are many lawyers in Italy. Is that true?

Michele: Currently, there are around 215,000 lawyers in Italy, but unlike England and Wales, we do not have a split profession.

Alex: Is there enough work for everyone?

Michele: The issue is not a lack of work, but rather the economic crisis affecting the middle class across Europe. Most law firms in Italy are small, often consisting of just one lawyer, which presents

challenges in managing a business and daily tasks. In fact, the number of lawyers is decreasing due to the economic crisis.

Alex: Do you think it is because people do not want to be sole practitioners, finding it too challenging?

Michele: It is not easy. It is a demanding life, with constant urgency and a need to be available. There are nu-merous documents to draft, statements to prepare, and appeals to file, all within limited time.

Alex: What does your typical day look like? I notice you use your phone a lot!

Michele: Hearings generally start at 9 AM, and we spend a lot of time in court. With multiple hearings in one day, you must manage them carefully. We usually finish around 1 PM, have a quick lunch, then head to the office to work until everything is completed, often until 8:30 PM. Then, we sometimes continue working from home. Clients often prefer calls over visits, which adds to our workload. This is a typi-cal day from Monday to Friday, though we do not usually work weekends unless there is an urgent hearing. You must be passionate about your work.

Alex: You are currently the Vice President of the FBE. Are you involved in many international initiatives?

Michele: It is an exciting time for me. After being elected second Vice President at the Bern Congress, I am sharing many initiatives with the presidency. One goal is to enhance our skills as European lawyers, starting new online training programs accessible across Europe.

Alex: That is a fantastic initiative. Do you travel a lot due to your role at the FBE?

Michele: We do travel often, as the international calendar is filled with events. The presidency, including vice presidents, needs to stay informed about global developments and contribute to the rule of law. This includes engaging with Mediterranean countries like Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia, especially given the current immigration pressures.

Alex: What advice would you give young people aspiring to become international lawyers?

Michele: The path can be straightforward, but first, improve your language skills. Learn as many languages as possible, especially English, French, and Spanish. Cultural awareness is also crucial, as it is easy to unintentionally offend others due to language differences.

Alex: Is there a particular area of law you would recommend for those interested in international work?

Michele: Arbitration, International business, Sustainability, and Environmental law are promising fields. For example, while artificial intelligence is widely discussed, its environmental impacts are often over-looked. Lawyers can play a significant role in addressing these issues.

Alex: Mental health and well-being are frequently talked about issues among lawyers in the UK. Is this similarly the case in Italy?

Michele: Yes, many Bars are starting to implement protocols with psychologists to support lawyers facing stress and burnout. It is vital to address these issues openly, sometimes with professional assistance.

Alex: Thank you for the interview. Do you have plans to visit London soon?

Michele: Yes, hopefully soon! ■

Alex Kowalska,

Co-Chair of the International Committee, Westminster & Holborn Law Society

No ADR, No Court: How Spain’s New Law is Reshaping Civil Litigation

On 3 April 2025, a new law came into force in Spain, Organic Law 1/2025, of 2 January, on measures relating to the efficiency of the Public Justice Service ("Law 1/2025"), pursuant to which the obligation to resort to an Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) mechanism before filing a civil or commercial court claim was established. According to Law 1/2025, the ADR mechanisms to which the parties may resort before filing a (civil or commercial) claim are: (i) negotiation, with or without the intervention of the parties’ lawyers; (ii) mediation; (iii) conciliation; (iv) the submission of a confidential binding offer; (v) submission to the opinion of an independent person with expertise in relation to the subject matter of the dispute (although their opinion will not be binding on them); and (vi) submission to a negotiation process governed by the principles of collaborative law.

This obligation to resort to an ADR mechanism before initiating civil or commercial court proceedings means that, since 3 April 2025, civil and commercial claims are not admitted in Spain unless it is proven that an ADR mechanism has been previously resorted to and that the parties have attempted to negotiate in good faith within the framework of the chosen ADR mechanism (evidence must be provided whilst preserving the confidentiality of the content of the negotiation). Notwithstanding the foregoing, it should be noted that Law 1/2025 has excluded the obligation to resort to an ADR mechanism in certain procedural actions such as, for example, the application for interim measures prior to filing a claim or for the filing of enforcement claims.

The objective of Law 1/2025 is to try to reduce the number of civil and commercial court proceedings initiated annually in Spain, since the high volume of court proceedings initiated each year means that Spanish courts cannot cope with such a workload and this results in court proceedings taking years to be definitively resolved. According to the latest available data from the General Council of the Judiciary, during the third quarter of 2025, 520,891 cases were filed in the civil jurisdiction, 30.9% fewer than a year earlier, and 2,735,918 cases remain pending resolution, 6% more than at the end of the third quarter of 2024.

Barely 10 months after the entry into force of Law 1/2025, it is still too early to draw conclusions about its effectiveness in reducing the number of civil and commercial court cases. However, in these last 10 months many interpretative doubts regarding Law 1/2025 have arisen which have led the Courts of many Spanish cities and Courts of Appeal to issue their own interpretative criteria, a fact which has caused a dispersion of criteria when applying the aforementioned law and, consequently, legal uncertainty. It has also been questioned and debated to what extent the inadmissibility of claims for not considering the attempt to negotiate in good faith to be sufficiently proven violates the fundamental right of Spaniards to resort to the courts of justice (the right to effective judicial protection enshrined in Article 24 of the Spanish Constitution).

In conclusion, whilst Law 1/2025 represents an ambitious attempt to alleviate the chronic congestion of Spanish civil and commercial courts through mandatory ADR mechanisms, its

initial implementation has revealed significant challenges. The dispersion of interpretative criteria amongst different jurisdictions and concerns about potential infringement of the constitutional right to effective judicial protection suggest that further legislative clarification may be necessary. Only time will tell whether this reform achieves its intended purpose of reducing judicial caseloads without compromising access to justice. As Spain continues to navigate this new legal landscape, the experience gained during these early months will be crucial in refining the system and ensuring the mandatory ADR requirement serves as an effective gateway to justice, rather than a barrier before it. ■

Mariona Bernaus

Member of the International Relations Committee of the Barcelona Bar Association

SPECIALISTS IN THE ANALYSIS OF ROAD TRAFFIC COLLISIONS

Providing tailored solutions for the investigation of incidents involving road users of all types

1. Many people see the title, but not the climb. Can you walk us through the pivotal turning points in your career that led you to your current position?

Because you mentioned titles specifically, its clear to me that titles come later. Identity comes first. There are a few moments that stand out in my own journey, but none of them look particularly dramatic from the outside. The first was realising that technical excellence alone would never be enough to ‘run a business’. As a lawyer, I was trained to spot risk, to be precise, to protect. That skill set is extremely important - but it’s incomplete if it isn’t paired with storytelling, influence, and an understanding of how decisions actually land in the real world.

Another theme for me was always pushing myself to step into complexity and challenge, rather than away from it. That meant taking roles throughout my career journey where the answers weren’t clear and success wasn’t a given. Roles where the commercial, regulatory, and human implications all collided, and my job was to steer the project or organisation through it. The most important shift, though, was probably internal. That mindset shift of seeing something ‘scary’ as a growth opportunity, and grabbing it with both hands. I cover this, and other career mind-set shifts, in my book, ‘You don’t belong here’, a personal project I wrote alongside my career.

2. You say that moving from a senior leader to a Head of Region requires a shift in mindset, especially in the legal industry. How did you navigate that transition?

The biggest change was moving from being the person who identifies risk, to the person who helps decide which risks are worth taking.

At executive team level, legal advice doesn’t sit in isolation. It must be integrated into strategy, timing, and commercial reality. For my own approach, and based on my training, that required me to stop framing answers solely in terms of “can we?” and start engaging deeply with “If we can, should we—and if so, how?” I also had to let go of perfectionism (or at least relax the reins). My own legal training rewarded precision, attention to detail, and thoroughness. I am still wedded to this, but executive leadership demands progress. You still need rigour, but you also need pragmatism, and the ability to work with imperfect information –sometimes at speed. That shift felt uncomfortable at first, but ultimately liberating and progressive.

3. With a full-time executive role and a family, what was the internal “fire” that made writing a book feel like a necessity rather than a project?

This book came from an accumulation rather than a single spark.

Over years, I noticed how many capable women, particularly lawyers and professional women, were questioning themselves despite outward success. They were doing ‘well’ but were exhausted, tired and in some instances, leaving their careers altogether. I could see organisations working hard and investing to get women into senior roles, but struggling to keep them there. Becoming a mother intensified that awareness for me. I saw how the system often asks parents to adapt while offering very little structural support in return. Writing

Interview with Guest EditorMandy Rawlinson

We would like to thank Mandy for being our guest editor for this edition just in time for International Women’s Month. Mandy is a C-suite executive navigating the complexities of high-level corporate strategy as a lawyer, an author and a mother of young children. We often talk about leadership and motherhood often times in separate rooms, with this edition, we combine what it means to be a lawyer, a c-suite executive, an author and a mother! With this edition, we hope to dive into different ways lawyers and ex-lawyers are breaking new grounds and expanding responsibilities.

felt necessary because I wanted to put language around experiences that are often dismissed as personal choices or weakness, rather than design flaws. I should emphasise that this is project is personal, not linked to any current of past employer, and all views and opinions expressed within the pages are my own, as are the stories I tell.

I didn’t start with a grand plan. The book is very much a mirror, and I think many women are ready to see themselves reflected honestly.

4. Managing young children and a career requires boundaries and emotional intelligence. What skills from parenting have unexpectedly made you a better leader?

Parenting has fundamentally changed how I listen. When you’re dealing with young children, you learn very quickly that behaviour is data. Frustration, resistance, tears, silence - none of it is random. The same is true in organisations. Being able to hear what isn’t being said is as important, if not more, than hearing what is. It has also sharpened my ability to regulate myself and take myself a lot less seriously. It’s impossible to be fully in control with little kids (anyone with toddlers will know exactly what I mean). Parenting teaches you how to navigate not always being in the ‘drivers’ seat’ of a situation, along with patience, perspective, and the importance of repair - I’ve found these very transferable into business, especially when navigating external factors such as geo-politics and market impacts. Perhaps most importantly, parenting has made me more compassionate and ‘softer’ without being less ambitious. Those two things are often positioned as opposites. They are not.

5. In a week where both a work crisis and a parenting milestone occur, how do you decide what gets your “100%”?

The biggest change was moving from being the person who In reality nothing gets me 100% all the time. What matters is intentionality.

There are absolutely moments when work take precedence, and moments when it absolutely shouldn’t. The key is being honest about the tradeoffs rather than pretending balance is always possible. We can’t be everything, all of the time. I do however try to be fully present wherever I am, even if the time allocation isn’t equal.

I have missed my daughters school play due to work, and I have had to cancel client meetings and flights to care for sick kids.

I also think it’s important we normalise that women can be both deeply committed professionals and deeply present parents, without projecting guilt or judgement in either direction.

6. Do you believe in work-life balance, or do you practice work-life integration? What does that look like on a messy Tuesday?

I don’t believe in balance as a static state. I believe in seasons.

Work-life integration, for me, looks like flexibility paired with boundaries and standards. It’s knowing when to push, to what level of outcome, and when to pause. On a messy Tuesday, that might mean an interrupted night sleep, followed by a teary nursery drop off, followed by a board meeting, or a walk between calls because my nervous system needs it.

This is where conversations around self-care, retreats, nutrition, menopause education, and evolving structures and equality legislation matter. These are not “soft” topics - they are enablers of sustainable professional performance. If we want women to thrive long-term, these enablers need to be prioritised.

7. If we asked your executive team and your children what your greatest strength is, would their answers be the same?

I hope they would both say that I show up - consistently and authentically.

In different contexts, that looks different. At work, it might be decisiveness, something execution, or clarity. At home, it might be warmth or reassurance. But underneath both is the same principle: presence. Leadership and motherhood aren’t separate identities. They are expressions of the same values.

8. What is a weakness you’ve had to confront as your responsibilities have grown?

My instincts to holding myself to very high standards and also to carry too much myself without asking for help.

As responsibilities grow, that becomes unsustainable. I’ve had to learn to delegate trust (not just tasks). That means allowing others to do things differently, not just adequately, but in their own way. This runs in the office and at home (I did a podcast recently where I spoke about delegating my daughters school pictures to my husband, and the ‘disaster’ that unfolded with their hair and outfits…he certainly did it ‘his way’, and I had to make peace with that.)

In a work context, I manage this by getting clear on what truly requires my involvement and what doesn’t. Letting go does not necessarily equate to a loss of control.

9. What is the single most impactful piece of advice you’ve received?

“You can’t sprint a marathon”

The point being that if it isn’t sustainable, it its success. I love this so much that I even used it as a title for a Chapter in my book.

It was said to me by a CEO and embodies the point that professional careers are demanding, and do often come at a cost. However, we need to recognise when it’s time to pull back and recharge before we compromise our wellbeing.

That advice has guided me through leadership roles, motherhood, and writing.

10. What “common wisdom” did you have to unlearn to get where you are today?

As I got more senior, I had to unlearn the idea that visibility is vanity, that ambition needs justification, and that rest must be earned.

This edition brings together voices on wellness, career pivots, self-care and rest, shared parental leave, legal reform, and women’s advancement because these topics are part of the same conversation - how we build careers, and lives, that are sustainable, human, and meaningful. ■ Questions were prepared by Editorial team member –Kene Onyeka Allison

OLaunch of the British Polish Lawyers Forum: A New Association for Polish Legal Professionals in the UK

n 20 January 2026, Katarzyna Jurkun of Freemans Solicitors and Ilona Józwiak of Dawson Cornwell officially launched the British Polish Lawyers Forum (BPLF), a new professional association created to support and connect individuals of Polish heritage within the UK legal profession.

The event brought together Polish-speaking and Polish-origin legal professionals from a wide range of practice areas and career stages. Attendees included solicitors and mediators from Duncan Lewis Solicitors, Osbornes Law, and International Family Law Group LLP, as well as members of other law associations and professional networks. The diversity of experience in the room reflected both the breadth of the Polish legal community in the UK and the shared desire for greater connection and representation. During the launch event, participants engaged in an open and thoughtful discussion about the vision for the British Polish Lawyers Forum and the role it aims to play within the legal community.

The launch of BPLF took place during the inaugural Bilateral and Multilateral Law Association Week (19–23 January 2026), a landmark initiative designed to foster collaboration and dialogue between legal associations with international and cross-cultural links. The timing of the launch provided a unique opportunity to introduce BPLF within a broader context of cooperation, diversity, and engagement across the legal profession. As part of Bilateral and Multilateral Law Association Week, representatives of BPLF also attended events at The Bar Council and The Law Society, where the association was formally introduced to the wider legal community.

Katarzyna Jurkun and Ilona Józwiak founded BPLF with the aim of creating a strong, inclusive network that supports Polish legal professionals at every stage of their careers. From students and trainees to experienced practitioners and senior leaders, the association seeks to provide opportunities for networking, collaboration, and professional development. A core objective of BPLF is to foster mentorship, enabling knowledge-sharing across generations and supporting career progression within the profession.

Another key pillar of the association is visibility. BPLF aims to highlight the contributions of Polish legal professionals within the UK legal system and to ensure that their perspectives are represented in wider professional discussions. By working collaboratively with other law associations and institutions, BPLF intends to contribute positively not only to its members but also to the profession as a whole.

The response to the launch was overwhelmingly positive. Attendees welcomed the creation of a dedicated forum for Polish legal professionals and expressed enthusiasm for future events, initiatives, and partnerships. The encouragement received from members of other associations further underlined the value of culturally and linguistically rooted professional networks within an increasingly diverse legal landscape.

The founders would like to extend their sincere thanks to Freemans Solicitors for hosting and sponsoring the launch, and to Dawson Cornwell for their support in making the event and the association possible. Their backing reflects the importance of institutional support in nurturing initiatives that promote inclusion, professional growth, and community-building.

The launch of the British Polish Lawyers Forum marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter. Looking ahead, BPLF aims to develop a programme of events, mentoring opportunities, and collaborative projects designed to support, connect, and empower Polish legal professionals across the UK. BPLF looks forward to welcoming new members and working with partners and supporters as it continues

Katarzyna Jurkun Partner at Freemans Law LLP Founder of the British Polish Lawyers Forum

FThe SQE at Four Years: Why London Firms Should Be Paying Much Closer Attention

our years after its launch, the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) has become a fixed part of the qualification landscape.

The SRA’s SQE: Four Years On – Facts and Figures report is the most detailed dataset yet, covering eight SQE1 sittings, twelve SQE2 sittings and more than 30,000 candidates across 50+ jurisdictions.

But while the regulator is keen to present the SQE as a stable, maturing system, the data tells a more complicated story, one with direct consequences for firms’ recruitment strategies, diversity ambitions and workforce planning.

For London based firms, the question is no longer whether the SQE is “working”. It is whether it is working for you.

A stable system, but not necessarily a successful one SQE1 first time pass rates have remained between 46–60% across all sittings. SQE2 sits higher at 69–80%. After four years, this is not a bedding in period. It is the system’s long term pattern.

The SRA interprets this stability as evidence of rigour. Firms should interpret it as something else: a structural choke point at SQE1. If half of all candidates fail at the first attempt, year after year, firms should be asking what SQE1 is actually measuring, and whether it aligns with the competencies they value in trainees.

A bottleneck at the wrong stage

The gap between SQE1 and SQE2 outcomes is stark. SQE2, the skills based assessment that mirrors real legal work, has far higher pass rates. SQE1, by contrast, tests doctrinal breadth through a multiple choice format under intense time pressure.

This matters for firms because the risk of false negatives sits overwhelmingly at the SQE1 stage. Capable candidates may be filtered out before they ever reach the point at which they can demonstrate the skills firms actually recruit for.

For London firms competing for diverse, high potential talent, this is not a theoretical concern. It is a pipeline issue.

Differential outcomes: a risk to diversity commitments

The SQE has widened access at the point of entry. But outcomes tell a different story. Differential pass rates persist, especially in SQE1. Academic background still correlates with success. And the SRA’s multivariate analysis leaves much of the performance variance unexplained.

For firms with public commitments to social mobility, this should be a red flag. If the SQE is not clearly isolating professional potential from educational advantage, the system risks re embedding structural inequalities at a different stage of the journey.

The danger is simple: firms may be losing the very candidates they are trying hardest to attract.

The hidden cost: attrition, delay and unpredictability

Low first time pass rates inevitably lead to resits, delays and, for some, exit from the qualification process. Candidates self funding their qualification are disproportionately affected.

For firms, this introduces new volatility into workforce planning:

• qualification timelines become harder to predict

• sponsored candidates may require additional financial support

• the meaning of “nearly qualified” becomes less clear

In a market where talent planning is already tight, this unpredictability is far from trivial.

Firms are still being asked to interpret the data alone

Despite the volume of data now available, the SRA provides little guidance on how firms should interpret SQE results. Key questions remain unanswered:

• Do SQE scores predict workplace performance?

• How should multiple attempts be understood?

• Does a marginal SQE1 pass matter if SQE2 is strong?

• Which preparation routes actually produce practice ready candidates?

Without clarity, firms risk reverting to old proxies, academic pedigree, brand recognition, informal signals, undermining the very purpose of the reform.

What London firms should be asking for next

The SQE is no longer experimental. The next phase must be evaluative, not descriptive. Firms should expect, and demand, the following:

• clearer interpretive guidance on what SQE outcomes mean

• transparency on what persistent failure rates signify

• a critical review of SQE1’s role and weighting

• meaningful engagement with employers as core stakeholders

Most importantly, the SRA must articulate what success looks like at system level. Consistency alone is not enough. The profession needs confidence that the SQE is identifying the right talent, not simply the most exam resilient.

The bottom line

The SQE has delivered scale and transparency. But four years of data now raise serious questions about what the system is selecting for, and what it is filtering out.

For London firms, the issue is not whether the SQE is difficult. It is whether it is useful: useful in identifying talent, supporting diversity and ensuring that those who qualify are genuinely ready for practice.

The data is here. The accountability phase must now begin. ■

James Catchpole

Associate Professor and Director of Executive Education and Professional Engagement and The City Law School, and is Chair of the WHLS Education Committee

JLD Event- Networking & Nibbles

Iam delighted to report that our recent NQ Celebration evening ‘Networking and Nibbles’ on the 8th of December 2025 was a tremendous success.

The evening brought together newly qualified lawyers from across the profession for an enjoyable celebration to congratulate those who have recently qualified and I am grateful to all who made it. I hope you were able to make new connections.

I would like to extend our thanks to our generous sponsors No 5 Chambers who and our planning committee (Jessica Farnsworth and our president Suzanne Eames) in bringing this event to life. Their commitment to the event was so very much appreciated.

I would also like to express my thanks to everyone who attended. Your enthusiasm, energy and willingness to engage made for a memorable evening. It was wonderful to see so many familiar and new faces and the conversations and connections throughout the evening.

If you enjoyed the event and are looking for further opportunities to connect with the fellow liked minded legal professionals we would encourage you to join our junior lawyers division which offers access to a range of events, resources and networking, please do join us. It would be great to have you on board! ■

Sarah Bradd Chair of the JLD juniorlawyersdivision.whls@gmail.com

TIntellectual Property in the Influencer Economy: Modern Issues in a Rapidly Evolving Digital Landscape

he past decade has seen the rapid rise of the creator and influencer economy, transforming social media platforms into significant commercial ecosystems. With this shift has come a corresponding increase in intellectual property (IP) questions being asked by individuals and businesses operating in these spaces. The law is being applied in contexts that its original drafters could never have anticipated, and the result is a set of modern, practical challenges that require clear legal framing.

This article draws on copyright in digital aesthetics, the boundaries of imitation, and the contractual treatment of creator-generated content. These matters highlight the increasing need for precise legal positioning in an industry where creative output and commercial value intersect at pace.

A recurring theme in online discussion is whether a creator’s distinctive aesthetic — often described informally as their “vibe” — is capable of legal protection.

UK copyright law does not protect ideas, styles or general concepts. A broad aesthetic, such as a colour palette or tone, will not attract protection. However, the elements that collectively contribute to a creator’s recognisable style may well be protected if they constitute original expression. These might include:

• specific scripts, narrative structures or spoken lines;

• choreography, movement, or staged sequences;

• distinctive editing patterns or transitions;

• graphic elements, captions or visual overlays; or

• the particular selection and arrangement of audio and video components.

Andrew Acquier FRICS FNAVA

CHARTERED ARTS SURVEYOR

Andrew Acquier FRICS FNAVA has been working as an independent valuer since 1982, specialising in ﬁne art and antiques Instructions for probate, divorce settlement, tax/asset and insurance valuations as well as expert witness work are regularly received from solicitors and other professionals.

Andrew has many years experience of compiling reports for litigious cases, several of which have necessitated a subsequent court appearance as an expert witness to argue quantum Divorce valuations are a specialit y, usually as Single Joint Expert. Work is carried out throughout the UK and abroad

23 York Street

Broadstairs Kent CT10 1PB

Tel: 0207 353 6440

Mobile: 07760 768 416

Email: andrew@andrewacquier co uk

Website: ww w.andrewacquier.co.uk

Where a creator repeatedly uses a combination of these elements in a consistent way, and another party reproduces them with substantial similarity, there may be grounds for infringement (as seen in Gifford v Sheil). The analysis, as always, turns on originality, fixation and substantial part. The challenge in the digital context is evidential: creators often iterate quickly, with little formal documentation. Yet drafts, timestamps, storyboards and raw footage have become important markers of authorship.

Imitation, Inspiration and the Platform Environment

Social media platforms promote replication. Trend participation, sound reuse and format copying are embedded into platform culture. However, the presence of a trend does not remove the potential for unlawful copying.

Difficult cases arise where a creator’s distinctive format — for example, a particular comedic timing, a recognisable storytelling structure or an original “conceptual hook” — is adopted by a third party so closely that the creator’s original contribution is effectively appropriated. Context is critical: some content is intended for open participation, whilst other material functions as a creator’s unique signature. Where a brand, agency or competitor adopts the latter for commercial gain, the legal position shifts.

Passing off may arise where the copying creates a likelihood of confusion as to endorsement. Consumer protection law may also be relevant if the imitation is misleading. However, copyright remains the most commonly invoked route, provided the threshold tests are met.

Contractual Misalignment: Ownership and Licensing

Many disputes in the influencer economy arise not from copyright itself, but from poor contractual drafting.

Key issues include:

1. Unclear ownership provisions

Without a clear and formally documented assignment, copyright in influencer-created content remains with the creator. Brands frequently assume ownership by default, which is incorrect and as such clear, written terms are essential.

2. Overly broad licences

Licences drafted for convenience often grant rights “in perpetuity, worldwide, in all media now known or later developed.” In many cases, this goes far beyond the intended campaign. Such wording may permit indefinite use of the creator’s image, voice and likeness, raising both commercial and reputational concerns.

3. Hidden or poorly explained AI-related clauses

A growing number of agreements now include rights to use content for “machine learning” purposes. This can allow training of generative AI models on a creator’s likeness, style or voice.

4. Derivative and secondary uses

Brands regularly adapt influencer content for paid advertising, email marketing or international use. If a contract grants rights for “one post” but the content appears in multiple downstream materials, infringement or breach may arise. Specificity regarding permitted formats, platforms and durations is crucial.

Conclusion

As social platforms mature and commercialise, the boundaries between creativity, identity and intellectual property continue to blur. The influencer economy has introduced new forms of expression, new methods of distribution and new modes of monetisation — each bringing complex and novel legal questions.

For lawyers advising in this space, the task is to apply established IP principles whilst recognising that the factual landscape is fundamentally different from that of traditional creative industries. Careful drafting and a sound understanding of digital culture have become essential tools. The issues may be modern, but the legal fundamentals remain as they were before. ■

Amina Amin Lawyer,

Women returning to Work: The UK’s Legal Shake-Up That Can’t Be Ignored

K workplaces are facing a reckoning. Legal reforms are transforming maternity rights and dismantling the silence around discrimination — and companies now have a choice: adapt or get left behind.

Forward-thinking organisations are already stepping up, using specifically tailored programmes to support working mothers through career transitions, boost retention, and help women thrive. Because let’s be real: laws protect, but culture propels. Protecting rights on paper isn’t enough; women need practical support, leadership guidance, and a workplace that truly values their contribution.

Redundancy Protections That Actually Mean Something

April 2024 changed the rules for good. The Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023 closed a long-standing loophole that allowed women to be quietly pushed out of roles after maternity leave. Previously, women were only protected from redundancy while they were physically on leave. Step back into work, and suddenly, the “reorganisation” could conveniently leave them unemployed. Now, pregnant employees are protected from the moment they inform their employer of their pregnancy. Employees returning from maternity, adoption, or shared parental leave enjoy 18 months of post-return protection. In redundancy scenarios, these employees must be offered any suitable alternative role before others — or risk automatic unfair dismissal.

This isn’t just legal paperwork. It’s a powerful message: pregnancy and parenthood are not valid reasons to end a woman’s career. They are, instead, a stage in life that workplaces should support, celebrate, and accommodate. For organisations, this means revisiting HR policies, retraining managers, and embedding protections in the culture — not just ticking compliance boxes.

Breaking the Silence: NDAs Can’t Hide Discrimination

The Employment Rights Bill 2025, announced in July 2025, takes the fight further. Historically, “gagging clauses” in settlements and contracts were used to silence women who experienced pregnancy or maternity discrimination. Many women were offered settlements with strict nondisclosure conditions, leaving organisations free to quietly conceal systemic bias.

Under the new law, any clause that attempts to stop a worker from speaking about discrimination or harassment — including pregnancy and maternity discrimination — is void and unenforceable. Witnesses are also protected. Employers may still use confidentiality clauses for legitimate commercial reasons, but never to hide misconduct.

This isn’t just legal reform; it’s a cultural change and momentum. Women can now speak openly about their experiences without fear. Transparency forces accountability. Organisations that

mishandle maternity discrimination will face scrutiny, while those that actively support mothers can stand proudly as examples of good practice. Why This Matters Beyond the Law

Pregnancy discrimination is a major driver of the gender pay gap. When women are pushed out, demoted, or stalled after maternity leave, the impact goes far beyond lost income. Career momentum stalls, opportunities are missed, and the leadership pipeline thins. In a world where talent is the most valuable currency, losing skilled women is a self-inflicted business disadvantage.. Supporting mothers in the workforce is not just fairness — it is smart strategy. Organisations that retain and develop talented women through the early years of parenthood cultivate the next generation of leaders. Diverse leadership teams make better, more informed decisions, are more innovative, and reflect the realities of modern life. Moreover, legal protection alone cannot ensure women thrive. True progress comes when organisations pair compliance with practical, emotional, and developmental support. It’s well known now that the ‘Motherhood Penalty’ accounts for 80% of the gender pay gap, and yet there seems to be so few businesses recognising the huge transition from ‘working person to working parent’ and supporting it in a meaningful way. This is where initiatives like MATRI Coaching play a pivotal role.

From

Compliance to Culture Change

MATRI Coaching is designed to help women navigate the complex transition into motherhood while maintaining career ambition. The programme focuses on identity management, confidence rebuilding, leadership development, positive communication both off onto maternity leave and back into the workplace again, and return-to-work strategies. Women gain the tools to stay engaged, progress in their roles, and thrive in a workplace that now has the legal backing to protect them.

At the same time, MATRI works with organisations to train leaders. Managers learn how to support return-to-work programmes, and foster an environment where women feel safe to speak openly. When combined with the new legal framework, MATRI Coaching transforms compliance into a workplace culture that genuinely empowers women.

This is crucial because supporting working mothers is not just about avoiding legal claims — it’s about creating an environment where talent can flourish, regardless of parenthood. Organisations that succeed here signal to employees that motherhood is valued, not a career interruption.

The Moment is Now

The UK is at a tipping point. Redundancy protections are stronger than ever, gagging clauses are on the way out, and women have unprecedented legal security and freedom of

voice. The opportunity for companies is clear: embrace this moment and lead, or ignore it and fall behind.

Businesses that actively support mothers, invest in development programmes, and confront bias head-on will not only comply with the law but define the future of equitable work. Those that fail risk reputational damage, talent loss, and a workplace culture that undervalues half of its workforce.

Redefining Leadership and Workplace Equality

These legal reforms are about more than policies; they are a moral and cultural reckoning. Women’s voices can no longer be silenced, and their careers are no longer expendable. Organisations that step up demonstrate true leadership: not the kind measured by profits alone, but by fairness, inclusivity, and the ability to nurture talent across all stages of life.

By supporting working mothers, businesses gain more than legal compliance. They retain skilled professionals, create more resilient and diverse leadership teams, and strengthen employee loyalty and engagement. They also take a stand against systemic bias, sending a clear message to the market: this is a company that values equity and progression for all.

Conclusion: The transition from ‘working person’ to ‘working parent’ is finally being properly supported.

The UK now stands at a pivotal moment. Legal reforms on redundancy and gagging clauses give women new rights, new protections, and a stronger voice. But the real transformation comes when companies turn policy into action — creating workplaces where women can navigate motherhood without sacrificing ambition.

Initiatives like MATRI Coaching make that vision real. They equip women to thrive, train leaders to understand and support them, and transform compliance into culture. The outcome is clear: women can stay in work, progress in their careers, and lead with confidence.

This is more than law — it’s a call to action. Companies that embrace these changes show that they value women not just as employees, but as essential contributors to leadership, innovation, and the long-term success of the business.

The message is simple, bold, and non-negotiable: women’s voices will not be silenced. Their careers will not be expendable. Supporting this reality is the true test of leadership ■

Sophie Maunder

CEO and Founder of MATRI Coaching

Modern professional careers were built on the myth of endless stamina. Unlimited focus. A perfectly managed personal life humming along in the background. No disruption, no dips in energy, and no human moments where life spills over into the working day.

For many women in law and other demanding careers, the reality looks very different. They are building high pressure careers, often governed by the uncompromising billable hour, while simultaneously holding together the moving parts of modern life. Family. Ageing parents. Relationships. Friendships. Leadership responsibilities. Their own health. Add to this the emotional load of being the dependable one, the capable one, the one who never cracks, and the picture becomes clearer.

The data supports what women already know. Deloitte’s Women at Work 2023 report found that 53 per cent of women in professional roles feel burnt out, with even higher levels in sectors such as law, finance and consulting. LawCare’s Life in the Law 2024 research reported that almost 70 per cent of legal professionals experience chronic stress. Women consistently reported higher emotional exhaustion than men.

These figures are not distant statistics. They are describing the lived reality of the women who are driving professional industries forward. They point to a truth that organisations rarely confront: a career can only be sustainable if the woman at the centre of it is.

The Hidden Cost of Constant Pressure

The expectations placed on lawyers have always been high, but the pace has accelerated. Constant connectivity, digital client demands, global working patterns and relentless market competition have normalised a culture of being permanently available.

Women absorb this pressure differently. They are often managing:

• The dual responsibility to excel at work while remaining the emotional anchor at home

• A tendency towards conscientiousness and people pleasing

• Perfectionism that becomes overwork, overdelivering and never switching off

• The belief that wellbeing is a luxury rather than an essential leadership skill

This does not lead to sudden burnout. It results in a slow erosion of clarity, creativity and resilience. Confidence declines quietly. Self trust disappears gradually.

A 2023 study in Occupational Medicine found that long term stress impairs decision making, increases emotional reactivity and reduces cognitive flexibility in high achieving women. These are the very abilities complex legal work relies on.

The qualities women are hired for are the first to deteriorate when their wellbeing is neglected.

Burnout is Bad for Business: The Strategic Case for Lawyer Wellness

Wellness is Not Soft. It is Strategic.

Wellness is still widely treated as something to squeeze in if time allows. A yoga class. A longer lunch break. A mindfulness app on the commute. But wellness is not decorative. It is functional. It determines whether senior women lead with cognitive clarity, whether early career professionals remain in the industry and whether high performers maintain their pace without sacrificing their health or identity.

Harvard Medical School research shows that a regulated nervous system can improve cognitive performance by up to 30 per cent and significantly increase resilience.

Yet the nervous system is the first thing to become dysregulated under chronic stress.

This is why reset spaces, structured environments that reduce cognitive load and create psychological distance, are not indulgences. They are tools for sustainability.

Practical Wellness Strategies for Women in High Pressure Roles

Large lifestyle changes are not always realistic for lawyers. Micro interventions protect capacity without disrupting the working day.

1. Regulate Your Nervous System

Chronic stress keeps the body in fight or flight. Decision making becomes narrower and less effective.

Try: Two minutes of box breathing before meetings or challenging conversations. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system and restores clarity.

2. Protect Your Sleep

Sleep underpins cognitive performance and emotional stability.

Try: A seven to eight hour sleep window and a consistent wind down routine. Lower lights, no screens and magnesium before bed support better rest.

3. Fuel for Stability

Skipping meals or relying on convenience carbohydrates causes energy crashes, irritability and reduced concentration.

Try: Protein and healthy fats at each meal and simple, stable snacks at your desk.

4. Move for Mental Clarity

Movement dismantles physical tension and boosts problem solving.

Try: A ten minute walk between meetings or after lunch. Small but highly effective.

5. Set Boundaries Confidently

Over commitment is one of the strongest predictors of burnout.

Try: “Let me check my capacity and get back to you.” This creates space for intentional choices rather than automatic yeses.

Why Women Need Dedicated Reset Spaces

Daily habits matter, but they are not always enough when the working culture around you is built on intensity.

Professional women do not need more productivity hacks. They need space.

Space to decompress.

Space to think.

Space to feel like themselves again.

Space to be with women who understand their

world without explanation.

Research in The Journal of Positive Psychology shows that reflective, restorative environments increase emotional regulation, resilience, creativity and long term behavioural change.

This is why retreats have become essential for professional women. Not as a retreat from ambition, but as a recalibration. Stepping out of the pressure allows women to return clearer and more capable.

Having attended and hosted retreats for professional women, the shift is unmistakable. Breathing softens. Thinking sharpens. Confidence reappears. Connection between women is instant and deeply supportive.

For many, it is the first time in years they have felt spaciousness in their lives.

The Power of Community for High Achieving Women

Resilience is often framed as an individual skill. In practice, it is frequently collective.

McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report found that women with a strong peer network are two and a half times more likely to thrive in leadership roles.

When professional women come together in supportive spaces, the benefits compound. Confidence increases. Boundaries strengthen. The patterns that lead to burnout are interrupted. Connection is not a luxury. It is an advantage.

Redefining Success for the Modern Professional Woman

As industries evolve, so must the definition of sustainable success.

Success now includes:

• A regulated nervous system

• A life that feels purposeful beyond work

• The ability to switch off without guilt

• Boundaries that hold

• Systems that support your health

• A community that strengthens rather than drains you

This is not soft. It is the foundation of longevity in demanding careers.

The women shaping the future of the legal profession will be those who protect their wellbeing as intentionally as their achievements.

Where We Go From Here

If organisations want women to lead, innovate and stay, the discussion cannot focus only on opportunity. It must include sustainability. Talent cannot thrive in exhaustion.

Ambition cannot flourish in chronic stress. Progress cannot rely on burnout.

For women in law and for all professional women, wellness is not optional. It is a strategic investment in future performance.

The reset is not a step back from success. It is what allows success to continue. ■

By Marianne Bell, Integrative Health and Lifestyle Coach

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GTwists and Turns of a Legal Career: From Lawyer to Leader

rowing up in the West of Scotland, I never expected my career to turn out the way it has. I would never have expected to work and travel across the world as a lawyer, nor to become CEO of one of the world’s oldest investment management firms. As a young student, attracted by the bright lights of the city, I chose to study Law and French simply because it offered a solid foundation - and a passport to my real ambition: to travel and to live and work abroad.

My early career took me from London to Prague, to Paris and back to London. A deferred training contract allowed me to work in the Prague in the late 90s, where I had my first taste of international finance. Later, working in Paris in both private practice and in-house in a French bank for several years, I would pinch myself as I left my apartment to cross the Seine to the office. These were formative years: intellectually stretching, fun and culturally enriching - if, at times, overwhelmingly demanding.

The steep learning curves of those early experiences built resilience, resourcefulness and the ability to operate under pressure — skills that are essential to any lawyer wherever they may be, or whatever the sector. Tackling these learning curves was part of the groundwork for the opportunities ahead.

I always enjoyed being at the table and close to the decision makers. Working inhouse in an international bank in London later on I enjoyed contributing to strategy, observing the decision making process advising on the trade-offs and learning from the different perspectives around the table. I could see the pressure to make decisions at speed, often with imperfect information. It was an ideal environment to learn, and I grasped the opportunity with both hands to take on new roles across the organization.

A defining and transformative step came when I moved from banking to investment management around the same time as I moved with my family from London back to Scotland. I joined Martin Currie, a global investment manager as Head of Legal - a shift in sector, in geography and scale for me. Without well resourced, specialist teams to draw on, I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck in. The learning curve was steep, the breadth of role vast but it was exhilarating. our small team shared an enormous commitment to serving our long-standing global client base and building a culture we could be proud of.

Being immersed in all aspects of the business accelerated my understanding, built trust, and brought me closer to the commercial and strategic decisions than ever before. It also meant working day to day with a small, committed leadership team. Taking ownership, working across disciplines and solving problems gave me visibility and in time earned me a place at the board room table.

As I became deeply integrated into the business, I realised that credibility as a senior leader required more than strong technical or legal skills. Practically, it required a deep understanding of the organisation (including our shareholders), industry dynamics, and the needs and expectations of clients. It also required me to understand the less tangible elements: how to behave as a leader, the critical role of culture and values in striving for excellence and how to engage teams to perform at their best.

Mentorship and sponsorship were crucial to my development and I was fortunate to have senior colleagues, sponsors and external mentors who took time to work through issues, support me on stretch projects, encouraging me to keep going during the tough times and aim high. They pushed me out my comfort zone while giving me the support to succeed.

The stretch was constant but so too was the support, and that balance helped me grow quickly, build confidence and perform to the best of my ability. Having people who believed in me (often before I believed in myself) was empowering and allowed me to take on and succeed in challenges that would once have felt out of reach.

I deliberately sought out cross-divisional experience, working closely with colleagues in Investment, Distribution and Operations, and over time taking on formal responsibilities in each. I also spent significant amount of time with clients, listening to their perspectives and understanding their expectations –insights I brought back to our teams and board discussions. This collective experience helped me build a foundation of leadership credibility and helped me move from divisional leader to a business leader.

The two influences— curiosity about strategy and the experience of taking ownership in a small, dynamic business — were the catalysts behind my transition from law to leadership.

My journey continues. From my early days in Paris to leading an investment firm, and now working in digital assets strategy and tokenisation, my journey has had many twists and turns. The skills I developed as a lawyer – to analyse quickly, communicate clearly, manage risk, work under pressure and bring structure to complexity - remain as relevant as ever. They have just evolved with the context.

Looking back to that student from the west of Scotland, I had no idea where my legal career might lead me. I simply followed the opportunities in front of me and tried to make the most of each new experience. The twists and turns were never part of a grand plan, but they became the most rewarding parts of my journey. Careers rarely move in straight lines, and if you stay curious, open and willing to grow, the unexpected turns often lead to the most rewarding opportunities. ■

Jen Mair,

Strategic Initiatives - Lead, Franklin Innovation, Research, Strategies and Technology; Chair of Future Asset

From Law School to the Highlands: How Drifting Into Law

Taught Me to Help Others Design Their Own Path

I didn't deliberately choose law. I fell into it.

My dad was a lawyer and so law school was the expected path. Everyone around me was doing the same. I was young and didn't have a clear vision of who I was or what I wanted, so I followed the conveyor belt. Pinsent Masons. Training contract. The whole thing.

But I struggled as a trainee and I wasn't naturally drawn to the work. It showed. Looking back now, after 15+ years and a complete career pivot, I can see what was missing then. I had no understanding of myself and no clarity about what mattered to me. No intentionality about why I was there. I was just doing what seemed like the logical next step.

2008 and the Unexpected Relief

Something shifted for me in my second year. I started understanding the game of working in a law firm, and once I understood it, I started enjoying it more.

Then came the 2008 financial crisis. I qualified at Pinsent Masons and didn't get a position. People were going into rooms and coming out with no job. I didn't have a job to go to either. Or any clear direction about what I wanted to do.

The Imposter Syndrome Pattern

This is where I want to talk about something I see consistently now in my coaching practice with lawyers and that’s imposter syndrome. Not the surface-level "I'm not sure I belong here" feeling, but the deeper pattern of competent professionals genuinely doubting their own capability despite clear evidence they're excellent at what they do.

Imposter syndrome was first identified in the 1970s, primarily affecting high-achieving women. It remains pervasive in the legal profession today, and whilst it affects a very high percentage of lawyers, research shows it disproportionately impacts those who've had to work harder to prove themselves in traditionally male-dominated environments.

What I find fascinating is the competency-confidence disconnect. These aren't people who lack ability. They're people who've learned to doubt themselves despite evidence to the contrary. I see partners who've been recognised for their work, senior associates who consistently excel, inhouse lawyers managing complex portfolios, all questioning whether they're actually good enough.

This pattern keeps professionals drifting, because if you don't trust your own competence, you keep proving yourself to external validators rather than making choices based on what you actually want. You're brilliant at your job, but you're constantly seeking reassurance from the next promotion, the next recognition, the next achievement that you're legitimate.

Adjacent

to Law, Successful in Business

After Pinsent Masons, I ended up in intellectual property consulting, which was adjacent to law but fundamentally different work. I was doing valuation and disposal work, selling and valuing major brands and assets like Thomas Cook, Bolton Wanderers Football Club, Blackburn Football Club, MFI, Land of Leather etc. Running teams. Managing multi-million pound transactions. Operating in high-stakes, high-pressure environments.

By external measures, I was extremely successful. Even a TRI 250 Hall of Fame award! (my mum was proud). But the challenges were real and relentless. The pressure never stopped. The responsibility was constant. The pace was unsustainable. I was brilliant at succeeding in that world, but I was also burning out, living on adrenaline and stress.

The Step Back and Inner Work

About seven years into that intensity, I started therapy. This decision to step back and do real personal development work became the turning point. For several years (and even now ongoing), I invested in understanding myself. My patterns, my values. What mattered to me. What imposter syndrome was really about. Not lack of competence, but lack of self-trust. It wasn't quick or glamorous, but it was essential.

My wife and I eventually took two years to travel. Southeast Asia. Nepal. Everest Base Camp. Australia. China. Geographic change alone doesn't create clarity, but combined with years of inner work, I started seeing what I genuinely wanted.

When I was in New Zealand, I signed up for an 18-month ICF accredited professional coaching course. By that point, I'd done the foundational work. The coaching training was the natural extension of finally understanding who I was and what I could offer.

Coming Full Circle

I've come full circle back to lawyers. Not as a lawyer, but as someone who spent years drifting through much of my professional life without vision, then learned the hard way what it takes to live with intention and meaning.

Now I coach high-achieving professionals, primarily lawyers, navigating the exact tensions I lived through. The real issue isn't law itself. It's the lack of selfawareness and intentionality that leads people to drift into careers, succeed at them without meaning, and burn out in the process.

The imposter syndrome pattern is particularly insidious because it keeps competent professionals stuck. They're succeeding but not trusting themselves. They're achieving but not feeling legitimate. They're proving themselves externally whilst doubting themselves internally.

What I work on with my clients isn't fixing their competence for they're already competent. It's rebuilding the connection between what they can do and their confidence in their own capability. It's helping them move from proving themselves to trusting themselves. From drifting to choosing. From external validation to internal clarity.

You don't have to leave law to find meaning or to overcome imposter syndrome. But you do have to understand yourself. You have to make conscious choices about how you show up. You have to recognise that your doubt about your competence isn't evidence of incompetence, it's a learned pattern that can be unlearned.

The path from drifting to designing your own career starts with one question: not "Am I good enough?" but "What do I actually want?" Once you've done the work to answer that honestly, everything else becomes clearer. ■

By Nat Baldwin

Professional Coach, Finding Your Freedom nat@findingyourfreedom.co.uk www.findingyourfreedom.co.uk

Beyond the Badge: Life After the Police Force

When I retired from Police Scotland after almost three decades, I expected to feel a sense of loss and identity about who I’d be without the badge. What I didn’t expect was relief. Freedom. And a growing awareness that life after policing wasn’t an ending, but an opportunity to reinvent myself.

I must admit, I had amazing opportunities in the Police Force. I was able to work in many different roles and departments from Frontline policing, Safer Communities, Training, CID, Fraud, Events, Emergency & Resilience Planning. I worked up the ranks from Constable to Chief Inspector with responsibilities for many officers and staff across Scotland.

Across all these roles, there was a common thread: collaboration with the legal profession. Whether preparing case files, attending court, briefing solicitors, or working alongside Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service teams, our worlds were deeply intertwined. I developed a huge respect for the diligence, precision, and emotional resilience that solicitors bring to their work. In many ways there were multiple crossovers - serving the public, upholding fairness, and navigating high-pressure environments where decisions mattered.

My decision to retire was somewhat practical. Like many others, I was affected by changes in the public sector pension rules and staying to complete 30 years pensionable service didn’t make financial sense. I have to say though that hitting the button to confirm my retirement was one of the hardest decisions I have made!! Emotionally, I wasn’t sure I was ready. For years, the police had shaped every part of who I was - the routine, the structure, the responsibility, the discipline. I had poured my heart and soul into the job, gave up so much of my time, missing out on family events and occasions, due to shift work, overtime and on-call. It was demanding physically and emotionally dealing with life and death situations and serving the public daily.

One thing policing and law share is relentlessness. Long hours, high stakes, and the emotional burden of dealing with people at crisis points. I saw many solicitors and officers alike putting professionalism above their own wellbeing - pushing through exhaustion because the job demanded it. There is a shared mindset across both worlds: driven, dutiful, and often self-sacrificing.

My final day in the office was filled with so many emotions. June 2022, still in Covid times, offices quieter than normal. I eventually switched off the computer at 4pm (still with that sense of duty….), left my badge on my desk and walked out the building knowing I had done all I could to handover to my predecessor.

When I finally stepped away, something unexpected happened. The world didn’t crumble. Police Scotland carried on quite comfortably without me. That was humbling and also a bit of a kick to my ego and a massive realisation that I was simply a number, a cog in the wheel that was very replaceable.

It was also very liberating, and I transitioned into my new life effortlessly, which was life changing. I began exploring who I was outside the uniform: what I valued, what brought me joy & energy, and how I wanted to live. I realised I’d been running on autopilot for years, fuelled by duty and discipline, but disconnected from my own needs.

It was during the last few years in my policing career that I began to notice a pattern in the women around me. Many were brilliant, capable professionals, yet they were struggling (myself included). They were exhausted,

overwhelmed, and battling symptoms they didn’t fully understand. Perimenopause was knocking them sideways, and the lack of education and support was staggering.

So many of them felt forced to step back from the careers they had worked so hard to build, not because they wanted to, but because they felt they couldn’t cope anymore. I realised that the same skills that had made me such a good police officer - leadership, empathy, problem-solving, resilience - could now be used to help women navigate one of the most challenging transitions of their lives.

That’s how my second career began. I retrained as a Personal Trainer, certified Nutritionist, Mindfulness teacher, and Menopause support coach. My mission was simple: to be a voice for women who felt invisible, needed help and support, to show them that they could thrive through midlife, not just be a shadow of themselves.

I mainly work with women who are in senior positions in Corporate roles/ Public Service. And one of my main mantras is ‘Know your Tribe’. Know the people you can connect with, the people who have similar values and ethics – these are the ladies I typically attract. I understand the pressures, the constant juggling, the putting yourself to the bottom of the list and I see it too often. I aim to support, coach and change this – as they say on the aeroplane “put your own mask on first, before you help anyone else”. You cannot keep pouring from an empty drained cup.

Leaving policing gave me the chance to re-evaluate what success really means. In my previous world, success was often measured in rank, results, how many hours you worked and recognition. Now, it’s measured in energy, purpose, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing I’m making a difference in a different way.

What surprised me most is that I’ve never once looked back with regret. The career that once defined me was just one chapter, not the whole story. Reinvention isn’t about starting over; it’s about bringing the best of who you were into the next version of yourself.

This may be you, standing at a similar crossroads thinking you can’t change career/move department, but my advice is simple: trust that it’s never too late to change direction. The skills that have brought you this far are transferable. Discipline, resilience, communication, leadership, managing change, they don’t disappear when you take off the uniform or step away from the title.

Reinvention begins the moment you give yourself permission. Take some time to pause, reflect, and to ask: What do I really want next? What is important to me? Why do I do what I do?

Because beyond the badge, beyond the titles and the roles, there’s a person still growing, still learning, still finding her way, never giving up and loving it!!■

Angela MacLeod, Angela Macleod MN.Nutr, AngeMac Coaching; Instagram: @angemaccoaching

Menopause & the Law: Equality in Theory vs Equality in Practice

How meaningful is workplace equality when menopause - an inevitable life stage - is recognised by law retrospectively?

The Equality Act 2010 was designed to provide a robust framework for workplace equality. More than a decade on, the lived experience of many women navigating menopause at work exposes a persistent gap between legal protection in theory, and equality in practice.

While menopause is not explicitly named as a protected characteristic under the Act, its effects increasingly overlap sex, age and disability discrimination which are protected.

In practice, legal protection is often retrospective, requiring individuals to evidence harm before remedial obligations are triggered. This disconnect raises an important question for employers, legal practitioners and policymakers… are existing protections sufficient, or are we relying on a framework that places too much burden on the individual to ‘prove’ disadvantage before support is offered?

Protection by Association

Menopause related discrimination may be actionable where it falls within existing protected characteristics (sex, age, or disability), triggering duty of care and making reasonable adjustments, on employers where disability is known.

Under the Equality Act, a person is disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on normal daily activities. In some cases, menopausal symptoms such as severe cognitive impairment, anxiety or sleep disruption have met this threshold. This allows menopausal symptoms to attract legal protection, but only if they first satisfy a defined legal test. This creates a situation where legal protection exists only after significant and measurable harm has occurred.

Equality in Application

Workplace disadvantage linked to menopause rarely presents as overt discrimination. Instead, it often emerges through the application of neutral workplace processes without appropriate context, like performance management procedures triggered by cognitive symptoms, rigid attendance policies applied to fluctuating health, or informal comments that cumulatively undermine confidence and credibility.

Many employers remain unaware of how menopause impacts may show up in the workplace and managers are often ill-equipped to respond through lacking knowledge, or formalised training. The result is not usually intentional discrimination but unintended disadvantage from a lack of understanding and preparedness.

Crucially, women experiencing menopausal symptoms may be reluctant to disclose their experiences due to stigma, fear of career impact,

or concerns about credibility, especially in competitive professions. Silence can feel safer than disclosure, even where that silence comes at significant personal and professional cost.

Case Law as a Signal, Not a Solution Tribunal claims relating to menopause have more than tripled in the last two years, rising from 64 in 2022 to 204 in 2024 according to analysis of HM Courts & Tribunal Service figures. This increase reflects both heightened awareness and a growing willingness among employees to pursue legal action where they believe they have suffered disadvantage.

High profile cases like Mrs M Lynskey v Direct Line Insurance Services Ltd (2003) have drawn national attention to how menopausal symptoms can invoke discrimination protections. In that case, the Employment Tribunal found that the claimant’s menopausal symptoms could amount to a disability and that the employer’s failure to make reasonable adjustments, and its treatment of her performance issues, constituted disability discrimination. Mrs Lynskey won her case and a compensation fee of £64,645.

While such cases are significant, they are inherently reactive. They provide remedial action after relationships have broken down and careers have been affected, rather than preventing harm at the outset.

Case law clarifies the law but it does little to prevent disadvantage before it escalates to litigation.

Why Disability Based Protection Falls Short This legal nuance sits at the heart of the equality gap.

Although the law can offer protection where menopausal symptoms meet the definition of disability, that protection is conditional and retrospective It exists only after harm has occurred, only if symptoms are sufficiently severe and longterm, and only if the individual is willing and able to disclose personal health information and challenge their treatment, often through formal procedures or litigation.

For many women, particularly those in senior roles, this is an unrealistic expectation. Requiring women to medicalise menopause in order to access fairness, when menopause has never been defined or confirmed as a medical illness, disease or disability directly, places an additional burden on them at a time when support should be forthcoming before disadvantage occurs.

Women should not have to meet a disability threshold, nor pursue litigation, to be treated equitably at work. Reliance on disability protection alone places responsibility on the individual rather than addressing the systemic conditions that produce disadvantage in the first place for a population that in many industries equates to 50%+ of the workforce.

These issues are particularly pronounced within sectors like legal professions, which is characterised by long hours, high performance demands and competitive pathways to senior leadership. Retention of senior women, especially at partnership level, remains a challenge.

Menopause intersects with this attrition risk in under-recognised ways, contributing to the quiet loss of experienced practitioners and institutional knowledge they hold.

Equality in Practice

Moving from compliance to genuine equality requires a fundamental shift in approach. Menopause should not be addressed only once it becomes legally actionable; it should be recognised as a foreseeable aspect of working life given 100% of women (assigned female at birth) experience menopause - that warrants proactive consideration.

This includes:

• Menopause-aware policies embedded in frameworks

• Manager training and structured support pathways

• Flexible working practices and early reasonable adjustments

• Normalisation of conversations around menopausal health

These measures are not about “special treatment”, they are about equitable treatment and risk mitigation. Employers who build inclusive practices around menopause will not only reduce legal risk but also retain and empower experience.

An Opportunity for Leadership

The rise in menopause related claims is not merely a rise in litigation; it is a signal, one that reflects a growing disconnect between legal theory and lived experience. The law is evolving through interpretation, but progress through tribunals alone is neither efficient nor equitable. The opportunity now lies with employers, particularly within the legal profession, to lead with foresight rather than defensiveness and to embed menopause into equality practice.

True equality is not defined by the availability of redress, but by the absence of harm in the first place. ■

Adele Johnston, Menopause Specialist and Educator, Founder-Adele Johnston Coaching Limited,

Host- The Menopause Coach Podcast www.adelejohnstoncoaching.com

Professional Indemnity Renewals: Why Starting Early Makes a Difference

By Alex Hill, Client Director at Konsileo, specialising in Professional Indemnity and Commercial Insurance for Law Firms

Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) renewal has become an increasingly challenging process for law firms. Greater insurer scrutiny, reduced capacity and premium volatility mean that last-minute renewals now carry real risk.

As renewal season approaches, early preparation is one of the most effective ways firms can improve both outcomes and experience.

A More Selective Market

The PII market for solicitors has changed. Insurers are no longer focused solely on firm size or claims frequency. Instead, underwriters are looking closely at:

• Claims trends and how firms respond to them

• Practice mix, particularly higher-risk areas such as conveyancing

• Supervision, file review and quality controls

• Financial stability and cash-flow management

Firms that can clearly demonstrate control and transparency are more attractive to insurers.

The Problem with Late Submissions

Many renewal difficulties arise simply from timing. Submitting information late often results in:

• Fewer insurers willing to engage

• Limited ability to negotiate premium and excess

• Insufficient time to explain claims or unusual aspects of the practice

• Pressure to accept less favourable terms to avoid a lapse in cover Insurers are increasingly reluctant to rush decisions, particularly where a firm’s profile is complex.

What Insurers Really Want to See

Claims history remains important, but insurers are often more interested in how risk is managed. Clear supervision structures, evidence of file reviews, robust cyber controls and an honest narrative around past claims all carry significant weight.

A well-presented submission that explains what has changed since any claim can materially improve insurer confidence.

Final Thoughts

The smoothest PII renewals are rarely achieved by firms with no claims at all, but by those that can demonstrate good governance, learning and improvement.

As renewal season approaches, engaging early and preparing properly can reduce pressure, widen market options and often lead to more stable terms. ■

Alex Hill

Director

IEqual Parental Leave is moving the gender equality needle

was expecting my first child when, in spring 2024, my firm Lewis Silkin implemented a new equalised parental leave policy. The policy saw the abolition of the firm’s different policies for distinct types of parental leave (maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental), to be replaced by a single policy, entitled “new parent leave”. Under the policy, all new parents, irrespective of gender, are entitled to take up to 12 months of parental leave immediately following birth or adoption of a child, with up to 6 months at full pay. It essentially widened the firm’s existing maternity offering (6 months of leave at full pay) to all new parents. The policy allows for paid leave to be taken at any time during the 12-month period, potentially in discontinuous blocks (I personally chose to take two 3-month blocks of leave: in months 0-3 and months 9-12 of my child’s life).

The policy was described in the industry press as “groundbreaking”. The firm is rightly proud of its policy and should feel entitled to use that descriptor. Indeed, the word is justified by the fact that some seriously heavy hitters in the legal sector have followed suit and introduced similar policies. The firm also chose to make the policy open source, sharing it with organisations that asked to see it. However, personally speaking, the adjective of “groundbreaking” doesn’t quite do it justice. For me and my family, a more appropriate description would be “life changing”.

Before the policy was announced, I’d intended to take the first 3 months of my son’s life as shared parental leave. That is to say, my wife would have carved out 3 months of her maternity leave and ‘given’ it to me, for us to take 3 months off together at the start of her maternity leave. Our parents don't live nearby and we'd heard that the first few months after birth (the 'fourth trimester') would be particularly brutal. We always wanted to do that part together. However, Lewis Silkin’s new policy meant that my wife didn’t have to 'share' any of her maternity leave with me for us to take off those 3 months together. And, on top of that, I got to take a bonus 3 months off.

Having that paid time off work meant that those early months of my child’s life were an indescribably wonderful period in our lives. If you were in our house during that time, you’d have heard my wife and I saying, out loud, how grateful we were for the new policy, on a near-daily basis, and think we’d joined a cult. The paid time off meant that, in those first few months, I was around to do the lion's share of the regular household labour, such as laundry, cooking

and washing up, while my wife either spent long hours feeding the baby or met her own basic needs. It created time and space for us to try and work out, as a team, what the baby needed, when we didn’t have a clue what we were doing from one moment to the next. And it's gave me time to forge my bond with my son, in turn giving me the confidence to lean into the myriad dizzying challenges and new skills associated with becoming a new parent. When I went back to work, it was with a deep gratitude for what my family and I had been given and a renewed commitment to the firm where I’d spent my entire private practice legal career. I returned with something of an understanding of the challenges facing maternity leave returners. And, as far as I can tell, there has been no stigma associated with having taken the time off. If anyone in the firm has thought less of me for having taken 6 months off, they haven’t said it to my face. Instead, my colleagues were overwhelmingly supportive when covering my work while I was off, supporting me on my return, and wanting to see photos of what I’d been up to with the little one.

In the UK, our default approach to babycare is sorely lacking. For the birthing parent, pregnancy and childbirth profoundly affects their brain, immunity, microbiome, endocrine system and sense of self. They are sent home from hospital and simply expected to understand intuitively how to manage that enormous psychological and physical upheaval. They must do so with their autonomy and independence obliterated by a vulnerable person who is wholly dependent on their unceasing care and attention, on a 24-hour rolling schedule. And the UK has the worst statutory paternity leave entitlement in Europe, which means that they must, often, front up to doing all this hard graft alone - juggling a seemingly impossible number of tasks and responsibilities. So when an employer feels able to take the bold step in implementing a family leave policy that helps alleviate the immense work of caring for a new child, they are rendering caregiving that much more equitable, and moving the needle towards true gender equality. ■

Tom McEvoy, Senior Associate, Lewis Silkin

From precedent libraries to prompts The next step for legal drafting

Almost every lawyer maintains a Precedent Library, collections of letters, documents, and draft orders that serve as reliable templates for routine legal tasks. Whether housed centrally within a firm or kept individually by lawyers, precedent banks save time, promote consistency, and ensure that essential information is communicated accurately. They prevent lawyers from having to repeatedly craft the same content from scratch.

Yet while precedents are widely used, most lawyers do not yet have something that may soon become equally indispensable: a bank of prompts for automated legal drafting. A prompt is a set of instructions given to artificial intelligence, essentially a command or description designed to generate a specific output such as a document, letter, or analysis. Writing a good prompt is much like instructing a trainee solicitor: the instructions must be clear, unambiguous, and thorough. The more detail the prompt contains, the higher the quality of the result. These prompts often include instructions that might seem obvious, such as avoiding Americanised spellings, but are crucial for consistent outputs.

My recent move from private practice to a role with LEAP, a legal technology company specialising in case management software, has given me a new perspective on both precedents and prompts. As Head of Family Law, I now help shape the software to better support family lawyers. Leaving practice meant leaving behind 18 years’ worth of carefully curated precedents; I was hardly going to commit intellectual property theft to take them with me. Instead, I now work closely with LEAP’s precedent libraries, which contain a wide range of template letters and documents designed to streamline legal workflows.

In exploring these templates, I have begun adapting and creating precedents that offer enhanced automation. One example is a letter of instruction to an actuary, which not only pulls through key case details but also uses LEAP’s Word Add-in to offer dynamic questions. The lawyer indicates, for instance, whether a report is ordered or agreed, and the remainder of the letter changes automatically. This creates a more sophisticated tool than a static template, one that reduces repetitive drafting and accelerates routine tasks.

But this still raises an obvious question: what if technology could answer those questions itself by analysing information within the case file? This is where prompts rather than precedents begin to show their potential.

When I joined LEAP, I had limited experience with AI prompting. My early use of ChatGPT had been purely personal, such as asking

it for the correct reading order of John le Carré’s George Smiley novels. The idea of drafting complex legal instructions for AI was daunting; it seemed faster simply to type the letters myself. Yet the capability of AI systems to read and interpret case data changes that calculation. In theory, AI could identify pensions, values, dates, or factual circumstances directly from the matter, eliminating the need for manual data entry. A precedent could therefore evolve into a prompt, an automated set of rules that instructs AI on how to assemble the necessary document.

Once created, a prompt could be reused just like a precedent. It could tell the AI to consider the Pensions Advisory Group guidance, relevant Practice Directions, or even the terms of a specific court order. It could dictate formatting, tone, style, and legal framing. After the prompt runs within the secure environment of the case management system, the lawyer would receive a completed draft ready for review.

Another example is the preparation of briefs to counsel. Traditional precedents can pull basic information such as names, dates of birth, or case identifiers. But a prompt could go much further. It could analyse the matter file, summarise the children’s arrangements, extract the current issues in dispute, and compile the factual background. This would not replace the lawyer’s judgement, but it would provide a first draft similar to the one a trainee might prepare on their first day, only produced in seconds rather than an hour.

Artificial Intelligence is already reshaping legal practice, whether lawyers embrace it or not. The familiar saying captures the trend well: “AI won’t replace lawyers, but a lawyer using AI will.” Replacing or supplementing precedents with prompts is one way to harness the benefits of AI while preserving the lawyer’s expertise, oversight, and control. Just as precedents did not replace lawyers, prompts will not either. Instead, they represent a natural evolution in how we create, structure, and automate legal drafting in an increasingly digital profession.

Katie Phillips Head of Family Law in LEAP Verticals

Dye & Durham Enhances AML Compliance with Credas Integration in its Unity® Practice Management

Dye & Durham UK, one of the UK’s leading legal technology providers, has announced the integration of a new suite of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) tools into its Unity® Practice Management platform, powered by market-leading digital ID provider Credas.

This launch comes at a crucial time, as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) continues to issue significant five-figure fines for non-compliance of AML regulations – with one firm receiving a penalty of £114,000 in July this year*. For legal practices, efficient, auditable onboarding and risk checks are no longer optional but are essential.

With the Credas integration, firms can now trigger advanced compliance checks on a Pay-As-You-Go basis directly within Unity®, streamlining the entire process while ensuring real time results, full audit trails and secure document handling.

The offering includes:

• Biometric ID & Instant AML Check: Combines standard AML checks with facial recognition, liveness detection and NFC-based document verification.

• Safe Harbour Checks (Vendor & Purchaser): Specifically designed to meet Land Registry’s Safe Harbour standards.

• Source of Funds Verification: Dynamic questionnaires and open banking integration for thorough yet efficient due diligence.

Results are returned and stored within the Unity® case file, supporting compliance, audit-readiness and risk mitigation.

Confirms Chris Shingler, Technical Product Manager at Dye & Durham UK:

“The reality is that older ID checking systems just aren’t fit for today’s threats, and that’s before you even consider how cumbersome they are to manage.

Our new Credas integration means firms can trigger checks with the data they already hold, see live progress and store every result securely, all without ever leaving Unity®

“From a compliance point of view, it’s a game changer. The SRA is cracking down hard and we’re reading news headlines reporting record fines every week. Our integration gives firms the assurance that they’re on top of their AML duties, with no manual tracking, no risk of missing documentation and everything in one place.”

Credas already supports over 350,000 AML checks every month, is involved in more than half of all UK property transactions and boasts a 4.6-star independent review rating.

Archie Barnett, Manager of the Client Delivery Team at Credas added: “This isn’t just about convenience: it’s about protecting your firm, your clients and your reputation from financial crime and non-compliance. All of Dye & Durham’s customers can now benefit from the same secure, scalable compliance infrastructure as some of the biggest names in the sector.”

For more information on Dye & Durham UK, visit: www.dyedurham.co.uk

The Hidden Cost of Standing Still: Why Law Firms Can’t Afford “Business as Usual”

In today’s legal market, tradition alone won’t keep your firm competitive. Many solicitors are unknowingly paying a steep price for clinging to outdated systems—lost time, frustrated staff, and missed opportunities. The truth? “Business as usual” is costing far more than change ever will.

Outdated Systems Drain More Than Just Time

Every hour spent wrestling with clunky software is an hour not spent serving clients or bringing in new business. Across the UK, lawyers still report spending the bulk of their working day on non-billable tasks. The result? Burnt-out teams, dissatisfied clients, and firms falling behind.

Your Staff Deserve Better Tools

The tools you give your people directly impact their job satisfaction. Legacy systems that crash, lag, or make simple processes unnecessarily complex don’t just slow things down—they chip away at morale. Cloud-based legal practice management systems, on the other hand, make collaboration seamless, improve wellbeing, and free up lawyers to focus on meaningful work.

The Risk You Can’t See: Compliance and Security

If your software hasn’t had a major update in years, you’re at risk. GDPR compliance, data security, and operational resilience aren’t “nice-to-haves”—they’re the bare minimum clients expect. Modern solutions like Clio are built with these needs in mind, offering peace of mind alongside performance.

Why Forward-Thinking Firms Are Switching to Clio

For firms in Hampshire, the choice is simple: continue absorbing the hidden costs of outdated technology, or invest in a platform designed for modern legal practice. With Clio, firms gain:

• Efficiency at scale – Automate routine tasks and reclaim billable hours.

• Happier teams – Empower staff with intuitive, reliable software.

• Future-proof security – Stay compliant, safe, and resilient.

• Better client service – Onboard clients quickly and communicate seamlessly.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Ask yourself: How much is inefficiency already costing your firm? Slower onboarding? Errors creeping in? Time wasted juggling multiple tools?

When you put numbers against these inefficiencies, the real expense becomes clear. And it’s usually far greater than the investment in modern software.

The firms thriving today aren’t necessarily the biggest, they’re the ones willing to adapt. If you’re ready to see what smarter systems could mean for your practice, book a quick walkthrough of Clio and see how it can help your firm work smarter, not harder. ■

Sarah Murphy, General Manager of Clio EMEA