Advisory Council
A4ID's Advisory Council is drawn from leading members of the legal and development community. Its role is to assist the Directors and Core Team by making recommendations on policy issues.
Consultant, Shearman & Sterling LLP
Chris Bright is a founder member of A4ID, a member of the Competition Commission and a competition consultant at Shearman & Sterling LLP.
Partner, Simmons & Simmons
Richard Dyton is a partner at Simmons & Simmons who has been involved in the direction of A4ID since its inception. He is a member of the Governance Working Group and has links with the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) at which he offers A4ID's involvement.
Partner, Linklaters LLP
Diana Good is a litigation partner at Linklaters who does a lot of international and multi jurisdiction contentious work. She is also a trustee of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.
Partner, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP
Counsel, HDG Mansur Investment Services Limited
Leah Hurst is Associate General Counsel for HDG Mansur Investment Services Limited, part of the global property company HDG Mansur Capital Group LLC. She was previously Legal Director for Accor, the French hotel group, in the UK. Her background is in commercial property law. And she has an MBA as well as a law degree.
3 - 4 South Square/Bar Pro Bono Unit
Robin practises at the Commercial Bar. As well as appearing in the Commercial Court, the Chancery Division and the appellate courts, he has regularly represented parties at mediation. From 2005 to 2007 Robin was Chairman of the Commercial Bar Association (COMBAR), the professional association of the Commercial Bar of England & Wales. He sits part-time as a Deputy High Court Judge, and as a Recorder in the Crown Court.
Robin has a long-standing commitment to legal pro bono work. He is the Chairman of the Bar Pro Bono Unit, a trustee of LawWorks (the Solicitors Pro Bono Group), a trustee of the Royal Courts of Justice Advice Bureau and a member of the Attorney General's National Pro Bono Coordinating Committee (and of its International Committee). He is involved in a wide range of initiatives, aimed at the encouragement and coordination of pro bono work across the legal profession, improving access to that work, and building relationships between the legal profession and other sectors including the voluntary sector. He was awarded the CBE for services to pro bono legal services in the 2006 New Years Honours List.
Robin is a member of the Bar Council's General Management Committee. He is a Bencher of Middle Temple, and also a member of Gray's Inn. He has been an advocacy trainer for many years. Outside the law, Robin is the Chairman of Trustees of Richard House Children's Hospice, which was London's first hospice for children who are unlikely to live into adulthood.
British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Dr Philip Marsden is a Senior Research Fellow of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, and Director of its Competition Law Forum. He has a particular interest in abuse of dominance, international competition issues and aspects of the law of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) relating to competition issues. Philip is also a Founding Director of WTI Advisors, a specialised provider operating out of Oxford and Geneva, offering developing countries technical assistance and advice on international trade issues.
He earned his DPhil from Oxford University, an LLM in European Law from Leicester University, and an LLB and BA (Hons) from the University of Toronto. He qualified as a Barrister and Solicitor at the Law Society of Upper Canada, and has been in private practice with law firms in Toronto, Tokyo and most recently with Linklaters in London. From 1994-1996, he was a case officer with the Economics and International Affairs Branch of the Canadian Competition Bureau. He is the editor of the European Competition Journal (Hart), the Handbook of Research in Trans-Atlantic Antitrust (Elgar), and Current Competition Law (BIICL).
Associate, Allen & Overy LLP
Ian was formerly a lawyer at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and then spent periods at the Lord Chancellor's Department and the DTI. Over this time he advised, among others, the divisions of government responsible for overseas development, European and international civil procedures, arbitration, overseas trade and insurance. He joined Allen & Overy in 1997 and since then has advised mainly on corporate and financial transactions in the insurance field, both domestic and international.
Counsel, Oxfam
Counsel, Oxfam
Claire Mortimer is a Legal Adviser at Oxfam. Previously an intellectual property lawyer at Wragge & Co LLP, Claire was Associate Legal Counsel at Plan International, a global child rights charity, before joining Oxfam.
Partner, Clifford Chance
Michael Smyth became a partner in Clifford Chance in 1990. He has had overall responsibility for the firm's pro bono activities since 1999. He is Chairman of Public Concern at Work and of the Social Welfare Law Coalition and is Vice-Chairman of the Royal Courts of Justice Advice Bureau. He is a Trustee of LawWorks and of the London Legal Support Trust.
Senior Lawyer, Article 19
Dr Sejal Parmar is Senior Lawyer at ARTICLE 19, the Global Campaign for Free Expression. She is also Visiting Lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, where she convenes the LLM course in the International Protection of Human Rights, and at the University of Edinburgh, where she teaches human rights subjects on honours and LLM courses. Previously, she was Human Rights Officer at Doughty Street Chambers, EU-US Fulbright Scholar and Emile Noël postdoctoral Fellow at New York University School of Law and Marie Curie Fellow at the Amsterdam Centre for International Law. She has provided legal advice to several non-governmental organisations on issues related to the protection of economic, social and cultural rights.
Counsel, Save the Children
Polly Salter is the sole in-house lawyer for Save the Children. Her work covers governance, compliance, and helping with some of the legal issues raised by development and emergency response work in 53 countries around the world. She previously worked for the International Save the Children Alliance. Her background is commercial, having trained and worked for several years in the City as a dispute resolution solicitor.
Partner, Reed Smith