Last week the Young Labour Lawyers had their AGM. Please join me in congratulating the new committee:

Chair: Daniel Jones

Vice-Chair: Bren Albiston

Secretary: Axel Landin

Membership Officer: Elsie Powers

At the AGM a motion was passed unanimously to rename the Young Labour Lawyers to the Junior Labour Lawyers (JLL) to reflect how law students are qualifying/being called to the bar older these days, and so that we are as inclusive as possible.

Please see the full motion passed below, which also suggests SLL consider a re-brand to ‘Lawyers for Labour’:

“This AGM notes that the criteria for being a member of Young Labour Lawyers is status/qualification/call, not age, and therefore resolves to amend the Young Labour Lawyers Code to rename Young Labour Lawyers to Junior Labour Lawyers. 

This AGM further notes any confusion with our name to employment practice and to consider changing the name Junior Lawyers for Labour in the future and invites SLL as part of its review of structures to consider a re-brand to ‘Lawyers for Labour’.”

Finally, please find below my final Chair report about YLL’s activity over the past year:

• This year YLL has set up a WhatsApp group allowing keeping the Steering Group to be much more active and helping us engage members outside of London and in a variety of practice areas. 
• YLL organised a team of walkers for the London Legal Trust led by Shami Chakrabarti and Nick Thomas-Symonds MP (Shadow Attorney General) and SLL donated £300. 
• Annual dinner with SLL with keynote speaker Jo Stevens MP, kindly sponsored by Thompsons Solicitors and raising over £700 for SLL and has led to Jo being invited to join the SLL executive committee. I am grateful to Emma Whysall and Tom Jones for helping me secure the sponsorship. 
• Panel event on strategic litigation ‘A useful tool for Labour in Opposition?’ with Andy Slaughter MP, Jolyon Maugham QC, Sarah Sackman, Martin Westgate QC chaired by Matthew Turner (YLL Steering Group). 
• Meeting with YLL and SLL with Jo Hickman from the Public Law Project. 
• Campaigning session in Wandsworth for the local election 2018. 
• Social in June 2018 at the Apex Hotel kindly sponsored by SLL. 
• Joint event with the Young Fabians Law Network – The Secret Barrister book club. 
• Panel discussion about sexual harassment in the Labour Party and beyond with Jess Phillips MP, Catherine Atkinson, and Labour activist Ava Etemadzadeh. 
• YLL Labour Party Conference rally ‘#TheLawisBroken’ with junior criminal pupil barrister Danielle Manson, Shami Chakrabarti, Richard Burgon MP, Vice-Chairman of the Bar and Vice President of the Law Society. 
• Organised a roundtable on improving access to the legal profession for law students from a working class background with Sutton Trust, Thompson Solicitors, Clifford Chance, the Law Society with Shadow Justice Minister Gloria De Piero about with Gloria published a piece for the New Statesman: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2019/01/new-year-s-resolution-legal-profession-look-country-it-serves 
• Launch of the YLL Mentoring Pilot scheme led by Daniel Jones with six law students at the University of Westminster. 
• Appeared on the City Labour Lawyers for two Brexit meaning vote events on behalf of YLL. 
• I was SLL’s delegate to Labour Party Conference 2018 
• I provided background research and a quote to the iPaper on the gender pay gap in law. 
• I addressed North East Hertfordshire CLP on the work of SLL and gave a talk on legal aids cuts and have been invited the University of Cambridge Labour Club to speak about legal aid cuts later this month. 
• In December 2018, I was elected to the SLL executive committee. 
• Finally, I want to say a big thank you to the entire Steering Group and the committee for 2018/2019 for everything we have achieved this year – Dan, Axel and Khaled. 

I’ve learnt so much being Chair of YLL and I’m looking forward to continuing our work as part of SLL’s executive. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what the new JLL committee gets up to.

Kind regards,

Deeba