Experience and Skills:
Having qualified in 1999 as a UK Solicitor, I have spent the best part of a twenty year legal career within private practice.
I entered a firm of Solicitors located in the East Midlands area as a newly qualified solicitor in 1999. My career progression took in roles such as Head of Department, Salaried Partner, Junior Shareholder-Partner, Managing Partner, Senior Shareholder-Partner. Responsibilities included all aspects of business management (including a re-brand and business transition from a traditional partnership to a Limited Liability Partnership in 2013 wherein the business was then re-branded and transformed. Throughout my legal career, I have been responsible for implementing all aspects of law firm compliance as a Solicitor Regulation Authority authorised body. My roles have involved sub-roles and duties such as Anti-Money Laundering Officer, Training Principal and more.
Profession and Job Roles:
At all times, I enjoyed a legal career at grassroots level by maintaining a caseload. Subject areas of legal practice wherein I gained expertise unusually crosses the two spectrums of contentious and non-contentious practice areas of:
Family Law Litigation
Divorce and Financial Relief,
Children Act Matters- private proceedings and public law (children in care cases), Civil Litigation, Wills, Probate and Administration, Court of Protection and Vulnerable Adult Legislation. I hold a management working knowledge and experience of Company Law.
Outside my professional practice I hold varied interests.
About Me:
In my spare time I enjoy writing and I am a member of a local writers’ group. Being a mother of two small children, regrettably, I do not get too much spare time so I do not profess to be too much of a writer or indeed the writer it is my passion to be. However, these skills come in useful in my professional life and equip me to combine the two. I am known for penning and implementing policies, procedures and internal systems within business and social settings.
Motivation:
Over the past twenty years, I have evolved over a series of non-executive boardroom style roles. I have acted as a Local Parish Councillor and a founding member of an action group related to HS2 in order to represent local residents’ interests in both Houses of Parliament and to pursue pre-legislative petitions before the same. This gave me a greater understanding and invaluable insight into the workings of both Local and Central Government and put me in contact with Local MPs and Central Government ministers. It certainly shaped me professionally and taught me how to challenge effectively and respectfully.
I currently sit on a Youth and Family Steering Group for my local church and my role involves compliance, implementation and much more. As a body we offer employment and academic training opportunities to individuals.
I have undertaken volunteer positions, a process which I started during my academic years and which includes roles such as assisting at a school with a special needs unit during my A-Levels, organising events, fund-raising and even acting as a volunteer advisor at my local Citizens Advice Bureau.
Presently I am in the throws of setting up my own freelance solicitor practice and I am excited to learn about challenges the education sector faces.
Throughout my boardroom positions and legal career of twenty plus years, I consider myself lucky enough to have acquired a readily transferrable skills-set which has been well-honed so as to best enable me to challenge effectively and champion best endeavours. It is this that I am hoping to bring to my role as School Governor of Queensbury School.