In-house lawyers at large charities such as RNID are at the forefront of shaping future legislation and improving access to courts and tribunals, reports Catherine Baksi

Legal advisers in the charity sector have often been seen as the profession’s poor relations. But over recent years things have changed, and in-house lawyers working for large charities are in the frontline of more commercially run organisations, influencing national and international politics and practice.


The legal team at RNID – the charity that represents the UK’s nine million deaf and hard-of-hearing people – is typical of the modern face of these organisations. It recently successfully campaigned to get the costs of providing British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters in publicly-funded cases for clients who are deaf or hard of hearing covered by the Legal Services Commission (see [2005] Gazette, 3 November, 5).

The campaign was run together with the Law Society, Disability Rights Commission and Legal Aid Practitioners Group. The Legal Services Commission had previously refused to pay, insisting that the cost of BSL interpreters was a reasonable adjustment for which solicitors should pay, to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA). Some 50,000 people use the BSL system, which has been recognised as an official language by the Department for Work and Pensions since 2003.


Alannah Lockwood heads RNID’s small general in-house legal team, assisted by legal adviser Andrew Stent, an Australian-qualified solicitor who has just sat the qualified lawyers’ transfer test, and one paralegal. Their workload includes commercial contract matters, charity law, commercial property, data protection, intellectual property and litigation.


Ms Lockwood, who trained in private practice and worked in the legal department of a small bank before joining RNID, does not see much difference between working in-house for a charity than at any other organisation. ‘Major charities are run much more like commercial organisations than they used to be,’ she explains.


Mr Stent, whose background is in defendant clinical negligence litigation, agrees: ‘RNID is both a charity and a registered company, and our role wouldn’t differ greatly from that of legal adviser in any commercial organisation. Essentially, it is to ensure the best interests of the charity are protected, and to minimise any risk which RNID may be exposed to.’


At RNID, there is one unusual element to the job – all employees are taught basic BSL during their first year. Ms Lockwood says she did not initially aim to work for a charity specifically, but made a conscious decision that she wanted to work in-house. ‘You get more involved in what the organisation is doing rather than dipping in and out of various client matters, and are involved from start to finish,’ she says.


‘People have a vision of charity lawyers being old, stuffy, working at a slow pace and doing pure charity law, but it’s not like that. We are a young department, the work is extremely varied, and the pace is fast.’


Solicitor Rachel Barratt is RNID’s legacy officer. She came to the law after having a daughter, and worked for four years in the probate team of a London law firm before taking up her current post. She recalls, tongue in cheek, her first day with the charity: ‘I had to bring my own coffee and make it myself, rather than it being brought into my office by my secretary. I had no office – everywhere here is open plan. It is quite a contrast to private practice.’


She joined RNID to escape the grind of private practice and have a better work/life balance, which she says she has achieved. ‘The large caseload is the same, and I still have the pressure to meet targets [for legacy income]. This year it’s £8.425 million – considerably higher than I was expected to achieve in private practice. I don’t have to worry about time-sheets and billing though, and the end product is so much more satisfying.’ But she adds: ‘I do sometimes miss the direct client contact.’


What exactly does a legacy officer do? ‘My job is to maximise our legacy income. I ensure executors, lay or professional, are doing their job properly.’


This may involve taking legal action to protect the charity’s position where, for example, executors are failing to administer an estate correctly, which can cause RNID to lose considerable amounts of money. She also looks out for fraudulent executors, checks estate accounts, and deals with pecuniary legacies, reversionary interests, and requests for ex gratia payments.


RNID also employs outward-facing lawyers in the form of its legal casework services. The team provides information, legal advice and, in complex cases, representa-tion, on disability discrimination in relation to employment, education and the provision of goods, services and facilities, and deaf-related welfare issues.


Barrister Simon Robinson established the team in 2002 with legal officer Keith Spencer, and is the senior legal adviser. More recent recruits are solicitors Naomi Mattingly and Lulu Buttifant, who deal with DDA cases and enquiries, and welfare rights adviser Krista Everington.


Ms Buttifant spent five years in private practice before joining the Disability Rights Commission in 2000. She is herself profoundly deaf, and so is keenly aware of the difficulties faced by her deaf and hard-of-hearing clients. But she is modest about her achievement of becoming a solicitor. ‘I went to a school where you either became a doctor or a lawyer, so I became a lawyer. It wasn’t easy, but I didn’t know any different. So I just got on with it.’


The biggest issues facing their clients, according to Mr Robinson, are accessibility and communication. Since part 3 of the DDA came into force last year, the key issue has been the reasonable adjustments employers and service providers are obliged to make.


Mr Robinson puts most of the problems down to lack of awareness. ‘It’s not so much that there is discrimination, more that employers and service providers do not understand the needs of deaf or hard-of-hearing people, and so do not provide the necessary adjustments.’


There are, he says, simple things that cost little or nothing, but make a huge difference to clients. ‘Don’t put your hand in front of your mouth when speaking to someone who lip reads, face them when you speak, don’t sit them facing a bright light or a window, and don’t walk around,’ he advises.


Ms Mattingly adds: ‘People whose first language is BSL have varying degrees of written English, so use simple clear language when writing to them.’


The team is involved in strategic work with public bodies, and is currently working closely with the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Disability Rights Commission to improve access to courts and tribunals.


Mr Robinson has just completed RNID’s response to the equalities review, set up by the Cabinet Office to investigate the causes of persistent discrimination and inequality in Britain, and has worked on the draft United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.


‘These are major pieces of strategic work which are taking place at a high level. I believe this shows that working in the voluntary sector can be challenging and rewarding, and offers opportunities to engage with government and other organisations at a national and international level,’ he says with enthusiasm.


The team is clearly deeply committed to its work. ‘It is important to have a specialist service like ours, as few firms specialise in this area due to the restrictions on the availability of legal aid,’ says Ms Mattingly.



Ms Buttifant adds: ‘At the risk of sounding clichéd, our work has value, and we have the opportunity to make a real difference to individuals and influence others in a way that is rarely afforded others.’