COMMITTEE UPDATE: THE BLS EQUALITY DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION COMMITTEE

I would like to introduce myself (Catherine Edwards) as the new Chair of the Committee and also introduce our new Vice Chair Suki Chhokar. Some people may recognise my name as having been in and around BLS for a few years.

I am a Reader (silly academic title) at Keele University but am a practising Solicitor, supervising students in our Legal Advice Clinics and a longstanding member of the Gender Subcommittee. EDI has been a passion for a number of years as a woman from a from a working class background. I hope that we can build on the work of Karen Bailey to take the committee forward and encourage and share good practice across firms in and around Birmingham.

Suki says; I am very excited to be joining EDI committee . I am looking forward to working with my new colleagues in a collaborative way. I have for the past 25 years’ experience dealt with international illness and accident cases. I also deal with uk illness cases at present I am dealing with the Kinder eggs salmonella cases.

The EDI committee benefits from some very active subcommittees who have been running fantastic events and initiatives recently. The REACH committee (Chair: Shaid Parveen) ran a successful event at the MAC which raised funds for the President’s charities. The Social Mobility subcommittee (Alice Kinder and Oliver Ward-Jones) ran the first of what we hope will be an annual, social mobility conference. We heard from speakers across a range of firms and also charities who gave key examples of initiatives they have helped to implement and the commercial benefits of doing so.

The Gender subcommittee run by Julia Jones has secured funding for every primary school in Birmingham to receive a copy of Judge Brenda and the Supreme Court; Equal to Everything. Members of the committee have distributed them to over 50 schools (out of 260) in the last two weeks.

This effort will resume when schools return in September, but we have already had some wonderful conversations with school leaders. All volunteers are welcome. Suki and I cannot claim credit for any of these wonderful initiatives as it was all in hand before we were elected but want to support further work going forward.

We are happy to welcome new active members to the committee and hope to update you on a monthly basis about our activities. Any queries do contact me: c.edwards@keele.ac.uk especially if you would like to distribute the Judge Brenda books!