Associates
We are delighted to introduce Law for Life associates. Our team have a wealth of experience in the field of public legal education; they are expert popular educators, writers and trainers who have worked in the design, delivery and evaluation of public legal education programmes in all sorts of settings.
Clare Shirtcliff
Clare Shirtcliff tained and worked as a solicitor specialising in family law with a background in Law Centres and CLS consultancy, she also has extensive experience in law-related education in the adult learning sector. Claire has devised and taught PLE courses linked to family and social welfare law such as ‘Dealing with Debt ‘and Women and the Law as a tutor for South Wales Workers Education Association. Clare also worked in Adult and Community Education teaching English as a Second Language and incorporated law-related education for migrants and new arrivals.
Clare has managed public legal education projects including ‘Progress toward Equality: reaching out to Communities’ managing and supporting local and national providers to deliver PLE on discrimination issues. She has a developed and assessed monitoring mechanisms and helped design PLE evaluations in a number of contexts. Clare has written and produced a range of publications including ‘Going to Court’ guides for self-represented litigants in association with the Royal Courts of Justice Citizens Advice Bureau.
Tony Thorpe
Tony has worked in public legal education for thirty years, initially as member of the Law Society’s Law in Education Project, designed to develop the nature and extent of law-related education in schools. Tony was one of the founding members of the Citizenship Foundation, and the members of staff there who focussed on the development of law-related education.
Tony has written 20 textbooks and guides to the law. His publications include ‘A Guide to the law for refugees and asylum seekers' and the 'Young citizens passport' (amongst others) and he has written and developed teaching materials in the UK, Russia and Georgia. Tony has extensive skills in developing and implementing law-related programmes in both formal and informal teaching settings. He has designed programmes for a wide range of audiences through work with BBC and broadcasters, human rights organisations, schools and universities and many others.
David Thomas
David is a solicitor who practised in the legal aid sector for about 30 years, until September 2013. During that time he gained experience in many areas of legal practice, latterly specialising in housing law and related public law and human rights. In 2011 he was selected as Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year (Social Welfare category). He is now studying for a PhD in law at the School of Law, Birkbeck College, and teaching law to undergraduates there; he has a Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Supporting Learning in Higher Education.
He has been working with Law for Life helping to design and deliver training since 2016.
Francesca Feruglio
Francesca is a researcher and trainer with a background in international human rights and social justice. For the last eight years she has worked with several organisations in Europe and India, conducting legal and social research. This involved monitoring and training on socio-economic rights, particularly around housing, health and workers’ rights.
As a co-founder of Nazdeek in India, she developed and coordinated programmes to build the capacity of women from marginalized groups to monitor, document and address gaps in the delivery of basic services, combining legal training with community-led data collection and litigation. Currently Francesca is also working as a coordinator for the International Network on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Davina Adamson
Has extensive experience of advice and information provision within the voluntary sector for over 20 years. As Senior Adviser at Help the Aged she was responsible for providing public legal information and advice, as well as delivering training and mentoring to staff and volunteers. As Advice and Casework Manager for a charity called Ownership Options, which specialised in providing technical welfare benefits and housing advice, she was responsible for delivering training and legal guidance to local authority and housing association staff, as well as commissioning, editing and writing information guides for the public.
She currently works as a freelance writer, copyeditor and researcher into public policy and law around welfare benefits, welfare reform, social care and housing. As a freelancer, she has written, edited and evaluated public guides and factsheets for several organisations, including Age Scotland, Age UK and Independent Age. She has also written research reports and briefings for NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and HSEU (Housing Support Enabling Unit).
Davina’s skills are in copyediting and writing public information clearly and plainly for diverse audiences. She has considerable experience in information design and, more recently, has undertaken training in knowledge and information management.
Anta Brachou
Anta Brachou has just recently joined the Centre for Studies of Modern Slavery at St Mary’s University. Prior to joining the Centre, she worked for Hibiscus Initiatives, where she managed the Women Centre until June 2019. She has provided advocacy and support to vulnerable women affected by the criminal justice system and victims of trafficking. While at Hibiscus she established and maintained monitoring and evaluation frameworks that worked for the ‘one-stop-shop’ model and worked closely with various funders, including Big Lottery and Esmee Fairbairn to meet reporting objectives and project outcomes. She is also accredited at OISC Level 2 to assist service users with immigration and asylum advice, and led the organisation through the OISC auditing process.
Currently, she is doing PhD research at University of Hull, the Wilberforce Institute on human trafficking from Albania, to contribute to the 4Ps paradigm of the problem; prevention, protection, prosecution and partnerships. Anta has also conducted research on trafficking for ATLEP (Anti-trafficking Legal Project) and presently working on a feasibility study funded by Commonweal on housing for victims of human trafficking.
Michael Chambers
Michael Chambers is a welfare rights and money advice trainer with over 25 years’ experience. He delivers training for Benefits Training Company, Shelter, Citizens Advice, housing associations and a wide range of other voluntary, statutory and charitable sector organisations. He is also a team manager at Hertfordshire County Council’s Money Advice Unit, managing a team of welfare benefits caseworkers. Michael also manages the Unit’s training programme, which delivers benefits and money advice training to council staff and the private and voluntary sector in Hertfordshire.
Lindsay Fletcher
Lindsay Fletcher specialises in welfare benefit advice and has worked with citizens advice for over 12 years providing benefit advice, supporting the public with appeals and income maximisation. Lindsay has joined us delivering courses on benefits for individuals and providing benefit advice focusing on breaking down barriers to accessing benefits, explaining complex benefit rules and looking holistically as situations.
She specialises in disability benefit appeals and resolving wrongful advice/complaints. Lindsay is also a freelance benefits trainer and works with many benevolent funds supporting their beneficiaries.
Angharad Monk
Angharad is a barrister specialising in housing law with a focus on representing tenants and those facing homelessness. Before becoming a barrister she worked in a London law centre where she engaged in outreach work in the community and for local migrant projects, including the training of volunteers in housing related legal issues. Angharad continues to offer training and consultancy to third sector organisations on housing issues, and also participates in her chambers housing webinar programme aimed at a professional audience.
Olga Fuseini
Olga Fuseini is a Czech Roma consultant, activist and research fellow. She has years of experience in community development work, and she was involved in several projects led by the University of Sheffield, the University of Salford, Roma NGOs and Migration Yorkshire. Her work or contributions have been about integration of Roma migrants in the UK and identifying policy problems impacting Roma integration. One of the projects she was involved in was the National Roma Network which had a specific focus on working with national and local government departments to raise awareness of Roma issues in education, health, employment, housing, and community cohesion. Olga graduated in politics and sociology and her dissertation (Rotherham case study) looked at the role of the community centres on Roma integration in the UK.
Theresa Harris
Theresa is experienced in designing and managing public legal information projects and materials, including a successful EU-funded advice sector partnership project to tackle discrimination. She is also a skilled writer and editor of user-friendly content on the law and rights, with expertise in information quality issues, and the information needs of litigants in person.
Jo Underwood
Jo is a supervising solicitor and lecturer in the King’s Legal Clinic at King’s College London. A solicitor with over 20 years’ experience in the legal aid sector, she specialises in housing and public law. She teaches and supervises Undergraduate and Postgraduate law students who work in the clinic. She also carries out research focused around improving policy and practice regarding homelessness, poor housing and access to legal advice.
Prior to joining King’s, Jo worked at the housing and homelessness charity Shelter for 15 years and was the head of the strategic litigation team. Jo has led test cases and third-party interventions on behalf of Shelter in several leading cases concerning homelessness, social security and poor housing. These cases include numerous Supreme Court challenges relating to homelessness, the benefit cap and out of area temporary housing placements. Jo also carried out training, policy, campaigning and research activities at Shelter, centred around improving policy and practice regarding homelessness and poor housing.
Natalia Schiffrin
Natalia has worked in human rights law and the voluntary sector for over 25 years, with an emphasis on the family justice system. She was an advisor at Family Rights Group for a decade, where she developed an interest in public legal education and helped produce resources for families involved with Children’s Services and, in particular, domestic abuse. She is currently a Family Magistrate and a member of the Family Justice Council. Natalia also served as a magistrate in the criminal division for five years and is currently a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform’s Advisory Council and Transform Justice’s Court Watch Project Advisory Group. She is a consultant for a US law firm, where she undertakes independent employment discrimination investigations. Natalia has worked with Law for Life as a volunteer since 2020, helping design materials and deliver training, and is delighted to become a Law for Life Associate.