As your newly inaugurated President, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all members of CDLS a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2023.
By way of background and introduction, I am a family practitioner specialising in Children Law and I am Partner and Head of the Children and Public Law Department at Huttons Law. As well as being honoured and privileged to have become President of the Cardiff and District Law Society, I am also the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion officer for the Society and look forward to building upon the work started together with my peers leading to my term in office.
My aims and objectives for my term in office is to ensure that all groups and members within our society are represented, whether you are a senior or junior practitioner, whether part of a team or a sole practitioner and / or a law firm of any size.
I seek to ensure that the foundations are build upon the great EDI work established, which is accessible to all our members, and I urge all members to have a look at our subcommittees ranging from BAME and friends, Disability, Mental Health and Wellbeing, LGBTQ+ and social mobility as well as ensuring that, during my term, International Women’s Day and International Men’s Day are marked once again.
I will continue to support initiatives to raise awareness and concern across all legal fields like that regarding the legal aid cuts/pay disputes within our Criminal Justice System and most recently concerns raised within our family Courts which have led to an impending event regarding The Transparency Project (to be announced imminently).
There are also various subcommittee groups like that of LawCare, Tech, Regulatory and Pro Bono which will not just help our members as individual practitioners but as a law firm as a whole. I also look forward forging good relationships with our sponsors, local businesses, community groups, universities and colleges to ensure that our profession is one which can unite and cross boundaries to help and represent all.
I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Immediate Past President Tom Black for his term in office and his continued support of our society and I welcome Rhian Hooton and Clare Good as Vice President and Junior Vice President respectively. To those in their elected roles and Council members, thank you for your continued support and hard work for the coming year.
There are various exciting new projects and events which can be viewed below, with many more to be announced over the coming weeks, some of which to help raise awareness and funds for my nominated Charities for the coming year which are Noah’s Ark Charity and Voices From Care, Cymru. Information will soon be released via our mailers and also CDLS impending brand-new website which is to be launched imminently.
In the meantime, please look at our socials as CDLS are active currently both on Twitter and also LinkedIn as well as your emails for further information.
I look forward to meeting as many of our valued members during my term.
