Raising the Bar for children in foster care: Lawyers Who Care CIC launches

‘It’s important to empower young people and make them believe in themselves because there is a skill-set and unique strength in every single care-experienced person that’s waiting to be found. So why couldn’t it be found by lawyers? Why couldn’t it be us that supports them, makes them feel safe and makes them feel seen.’ Lucy Barnes

People who have experienced the care system and want to become lawyers have a new champion, with the launch of Lawyers Who Care. I founded Lawyers Who Care as a care-experienced pupil barrister at East Anglian Chambers alongside the incredible Kate-Aubrey Johnson, a youth justice specialist at Garden Court Chambers. It is care-experience led by the amazingly talented Gemma Creamer (aspiring family law barrister) and a care-experienced Steering Committee. 

Lawyers Who Care CIC supports care-experienced people who aspire for legal careers, as well as providing a sense of community Lawyers Who Care provides unprecedented long-term mentoring (2+ years) by a legal professional mentor to a care-experienced aspiring lawyer. The mentors are also being trained in specialist ‘Care Aware’ and ‘Trauma-Informed’ training, which LWC aims to set a precedent for equipping legal professionals with understanding the barriers care-experienced applicants may face. 

Within just two months of launching, Lawyers Who Care has already secured 10 mentorship organisations (law firms and chambers signed up to the initiative) and 30 mentors. They have also received remarkably positive feedback on the training. One example reads:

"Lawyers Who Care is more than just a Mentoring Organisation, they are a beacon of hope and catalyst for positive change in the lives of Care-Experienced people. As a firm we signed up within 20 minutes! What they are providing our staff in training is one of a kind and we cannot wait to start welcoming care experienced people to start their first steps into the law with us." Oliver Conway (Oliver Fisher Solicitors)

Lawyers Who Care has also already received endorsements from both the Bar Council and the Law Society and has senior members of the industry, including Sir Andrew McFarlane, the President of the Family Law Division (a.k.a. top judge in Family Law) behind them. 

Lawyers Who Care is a heart-led organisation which leads from personal experience. I myself as Co-Founder have experience of the care system. In a blog I wrote for the Bar Council titled ‘Raising the Bar: Care-experienced people belong here’, I explain my own personal background that led to the setting up of Lawyers Who Care. In my own words:

‘Care-experienced people are under-represented across the legal professions. I grew up in foster care between the ages of 13-16. At 16, I fell off the care cliff when I stopped receiving any local authority support. I know from personal experience that growing up in foster care poses many career barriers. We grow up being told to “be realistic” about aspiring for any career, let alone a career in law.’

Lawyers Who Care was a dream for me since falling of the cliff at 16. I always wanted to show others that we are not defined by our backgrounds and that we can achieve our dreams not in spite of our backgrounds, but because of them. That we should never be told that the bar is low for us. When I met our Co-Founder, Kate Aubrey-Johnson, who witnesses the barriers for care-experienced people from a youth justice perspective, Lawyers Who Care was born out of a passionate blend of professional and personal experience. We wanted to show the profession that we are not to be looked down on or pitied, but are to be seen as talented equals, who just need the right support. Lawyers Who Care provides that support. 

Lawyers Who Care is creating a wide web of support for aspiring lawyers and leading by example on what inclusion should look like. From training and providing mentors, to changing recruitment processes, to providing a community of care-experienced people, to witnessing more care-experienced people proudly taking ownership of who they are without shame, Lawyers Who Care is changing the trajectory of what society assumes we can become. We are more than just a non-profit organisation; we are a movement. We are eroding the stigma one step at a time by showing the world what care-experienced excellence can and does look like.

Gemma and I were delighted to be invited by NAFP to speak in Parliament on Lawyers Who Care. As I said in my speech to the House of Commons that day:

“We’re showing you today the value that we bring not just as individual care-experienced people but also the value that passion can go on to create in the world.”