Shami Chakrabarti, the director of pressure group Liberty, has been awarded a CBE in this year's Queen's birthday honours list in recognition of her human rights work.

Ms Chakrabarti, a barrister, said: 'This kind recognition belongs to Liberty - the oldest rights and freedoms campaign in this country. I hope it will send a timely signal that far from being disloyalty, democratic dissent is a positive civic duty. I take it as an invitation to protest even more.'

Other recipients in the legal profession of a CBE were solicitor Alistair McGlone, deputy director for legal services at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, solicitor Walter Merricks, chief ombudsman at the Financial Ombudsman Service, and Mervyn Murch, professor of law at Cardiff Law School.

Drusilla Sharpling, chief Crown prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in London and a barrister, and Timothy Workman, senior district judge and a former solicitor, were also awarded a CBE.

Scottish solicitor Robert Armour, company secretary at British Energy, was awarded an OBE for services to the electricity industry. Also handed an OBE were Hallmarks partner David Hallmark, for services to the community in Worcester, and Geoffrey Shindler, president of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners and founder of Manchester firm Lane-Smith & Shindler, for services to the administration of justice.

An MBE went to Susan Elson, clerk to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, John Denys Gwynne-Hughes, a partner in Gwynne-Hughes and clerk to Aberaeron Town Council, and barrister Susan Matthews, senior Crown prosecutor at the CPS in Nottingham.

Anita Rice