Celebrating Disabled Women in Law

Cerebrating Disabled Women in Law was the Association of Disabled Lawyers' reflection of International Women's Day 2022 in collaboration with Legal 'n' Able. This online event was the first that focuses exclusively on women in a variety of legal professions. It takes place on Monday 14th March 2022 at 6pm until 7:15pm.

The event had leading voices providing talks on being a disabled woman in law followed by a discussion covering questions such as:

Why law & why your chosen area of expertise?

Has being a disabled woman in law impacted your career positively?

How can the legal industry become more inclusive to disabled women?

Why is intersectionality important to you?

We had a panel of fantastic speakers.

Emily Broad (Chair), is the Executive Assistant of the Association of Disabled Lawyers and represents the organisation on the Bar Standards Board Disability Taskforce. She also assists with the operational aspects of the Association. Emily is also a Paralegal at the Infected Blood Inquiry. She graduated with an LLB from Cardiff University in 2017 and went onto study the Bar Professional Training Course and Clinical Legal Project LLM at City, University of London.

Yasmin Sheikh is Founder of Diverse Matters and Vice-Chair of the Law Society's Lawyers with Disabilities Division. Yasmin left her job as a personal injury solicitor at Clyde & Co in 2015 to create a consultancy provider that trains organisations to confidently approach disability and visible or non-visible health conditions. It offers consultancy and training, runs workshops and webinars, holds talks on issues such as unconscious bias, speaks at corporate events and helps organisations launch disability networks.Diverse Matters has worked with several large law firms as well as major companies such as Thomson Reuters, EY and JP Morgan.

Jodiann Gayle helps students, through her network Legalnable, to navigate their journey on becoming a Legal professional through her disability peer to peer support group. Legalnable was founded to create a safe space for individuals from all backgrounds to discuss all things surrounding disability, support and law. The aim of the support network is to ensure that students, graduates and legal professionals could come together to form a community and support each other.

Christina Warner is a family and animal protection barrister at Goldsmith Chambers. Having been described by her clients as a “powerful” advocate with a “human touch”, Christina has raised awareness of the needs of LGBTQ+ people, Latinx communities and disabled people accessing the family courts as well as promoting their rights generally through pro bono contributions to charities and projects. Having also been recognised as a “pioneer” in the field of animal protection law, Christina has fought to bring attention to the link between violence towards animals and children and domestic abuse.

Fiona Hewitt is a Senior Associate and Head of Employment and Commercial Disputes at Neves Solicitors. She is an experienced Solicitor and Accredited Mediator specialising in employment law and commercial dispute resolution including corporate support, HR training and Tribunal claims, shareholder and partnership disputes, PR/media and reputation management.

The programme for the event was:

18:00-18:10: Introductions

18:10-18:20: Yasmin Sheikh

18:20-18:40: Jodiann Gayle

18:40-18:50: Christina Warner

18:50-19:00: Fiona Hewitt

19:00-19:15: Q&A