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Skills training for early career practitioners is a core part of the Bar Human Rights Committee (BHRC)’s learning and training advocacy track, bridging the widening gap between academic knowledge and real-world practice and offering perspective and experience exchange on various aspects of practice, including client interaction and interviewing, advanced advocacy techniques, and vital communication and leadership skills. BHRC is committed to supporting our members and partner networks with opportunities to develop these essential skills for human rights practice and to build the confidence and capacity to handle complex, challenging human rights cases using a holistic, human-centred, trauma-informed approach.
The Human Rights Lawyers Association (HRLA) is open to all connected with the law and the legal profession who have an interest in human rights law in the United Kingdom. The Association currently has over 2,000 members including solicitors, barristers, advocates, judges, government lawyers, legal academics, legal executives, in-house lawyers, pupils, trainees and law students. HRLA exists to increase knowledge and understanding of human rights and to aid their effective implementation within the UK legal framework and system of government.
In November 2024, BHRC and HRLA were proud to partner on this event as a follow up to the ‘Human Rights Careers, Skills & Values’ seminar jointly hosted in November 2023 (recording available here). Through a half-day programme of intensive but insightful and interactive sessions, ‘Skills for Human Rights Practice’ was designed to support the development of confidence, community and competency among junior members of the Bar and the legal profession overall, and to help early career practitioners, pupils, trainees and law students skill up in key areas that support advanced, human-centred advocacy approaches to human rights practice. The seminar was convened by Dr Louise Loder, BHRC’s Education & Training Lead and member of the HRLA Executive Committee.
Speakers were invited from the Executive Committees and member networks of BHRC and HRLA, as well as valued contacts from the legal profession, from NGOs and higher education, and included:
Lui Asquith, Vice Chair of HRLA
Kirsty Brimelow KC, Vice Chair Elect of the Bar Council & Head of the International Human Rights Team, Barrister at Doughty Street Chambers
Jo Cecil KC, Vice Chair of BHRC & Barrister at Garden Court Chambers
Joe Middleton KC, Chair of HRLA
Amrit Kaur Dhanoa, Chair of the Bar Council’s Young Barristers’ Committee of England and Wales
Philip Rule KC, Barrister & Head of the Public Law Group, No 5 Chambers, HRLA Executive Committee
Rachel Barnes KC, Barrister at 3 Raymond Buildings, Executive Committee Member, BHRC
Haydée Dijkstal, Barrister at 33 Bedford Row & Member of the Executive Committee of BHRC
Zoe Harper, Barrister at Doughty Street Chambers
Jack Dingley, Pupil at Kenworthy’s Chambers and former Head of Casework at Manuel Bravo Project
Oliver Jackson, Barrister at 11KBW & HRLA Executive Committee
Shoaib M Khan, Barrister and Solicitor-Advocate, Vice Chair of the Human Rights Lawyers Association
Samia Yaqub, ILPA Wellbeing Group, Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association
Josephine Fathers, Barrister at Garden Court Chambers & BHRC Executive Committee
George Grammer-Taylor, Trainee Solicitor at Clyde & Co & Academic Committee Member, Client Interviewing Competition for England and Wales
Harj Narulla, Barrister in climate law and litigation, Doughty Street Chambers
Dr Felicity Gerry KC, International King’s Counsel, Libertas Chambers
Vicki Prais, Human Rights Lawyer & Academic, HRLA Executive Committee
Dr Debra Long, International Human Rights Policy Manager, The Law Society.
The half-day seminar welcomed over 400 registrants from the UK and internationally, including members of BHRC and HRLA, UK and international law students (including undergraduates and postgraduate / postdoctoral researchers), trainee solicitors, pupil barristers and early- to mid-career solicitors and barristers who are already working in or interested in moving into human rights practice, or more deeply embedding a rights-based approach within their legal and professional practice in general.
The recording of the seminar is now available on BHRC’s YouTube channel here in two parts.
For further information about BHRC’s education and training advocacy track, please contact Dr Louise Loder.
