LinC – Lawyers in Charities

Marianne Liebmann

Marianne is sole Legal Counsel at the Clean Air Fund, which combines her keen interests in public health and environment. Marianne has previously held roles at Teach First the British Red Cross, The Children’s Society and Marie Stopes International as well as consulting to international charities and social businesses.

Jess Beale (nee Neville)

Jess joined Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation in August 2024, after a couple of years in Macmillan Cancer Support’s legal team. Jess really enjoys working in-house and the massive support that LinC provides. Like all people in-house Jess gets involved in a variety of work and loves being integrated into a charity tackling health inequalities. Before working at Macmillan and Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation, Jess spent three and half years in Bates Wells’ charities and social enterprises department. Jess joined the LinC committee in July 2023 – as she really values the support network that LinC provides to in-house charity lawyers, and is particularly interested in how we can best share knowledge and experience and look at supporting people from all routes into law to become the best advisers they can. Jess lives in Horsham, West Sussex – and spend lots of her time in the forests with her dog, Sapa!

Abra Edwards

Abra is a US qualified lawyer and is the Head of Legal Compliance and DPO for Save the Children Fund (UK). In her current role, she is responsible for advising on areas of legal compliance, such as regulatory reporting, data protection, anti-terrorism, fraud reporting/investigations, and related policies, training and compliance.

Prior to joining Save the Children in 2016, Abra was an litigator in the Compliance & Enforcement team of Willkie Farr & Gallagher in London and Washington DC. Abra is originally from New York City. She joined the Peace Corps following University, spending two years teaching English in Latvia.

Susan Gent

Susan is currently General Counsel and Company Secretary at the Royal Albert Hall.

Susan qualified as a solicitor at Masons solicitors (now Pinsent Masons), specialising in construction and engineering law. Susan has subsequently been Head of Litigation for London Underground, Head of Legal for WWF-UK and General Counsel for the Royal Academy of Arts.

Susan is currently also the Company Secretary for the Exhibition Road Cultural group, a charity whose members are the arts and cultural organisations that make up this world renowned cultural district.

Susan has held many charity trustee roles. She is currently a trustee of Woking Hospice and has previously been a trustee of the Make A Wish Foundation and Walworth Garden, President of the Rotary Club of Finsbury and Trustee of the Rotary District Trust Fund, and trustee of the Millwall Community Scheme attached to Millwall Football Club.

Lucy Morgan

Lucy is Associate Director of Legal, Compliance and Governance at Breast Cancer Now. Lucy is currently a trustee of Gingerbread, vice-chair of trustees at Upswing and chairs the Science and Technology Group at the Reform Club. Lucy has worked at Macmillan, NSPCC and Age UK. She has a son with severe learning difficulties which means she spends a lot of time fighting to get him the right support. She had a previous career as a trapeze artist.

Jamie Evans

Jamie is the Assistant General Counsel of Room to Read, an education non-profit based in 20 countries worldwide.

Previously, Jamie was Legal Lead to the Transformation Delivery and Procurement teams at Save the Children International, where he worked for four years. He advised on transformation projects and global programs, such as opening Covid treatment centres.

Prior to this, Jamie was a Corporate/M&A lawyer for seven years at Reed Smith and CMS.

Over the years Jamie has held several voluntary positions, such as committee member of the INGO Lawyers group and Company Secretary of Transaid.

Zoe Ballantyne

Zoe originally qualified as an IP lawyer in the Life Sciences practice at Ashursts, before moving in house to the Wellcome Trust where she worked in the Innovations Division on the translation of healthcare innovation into the clinic. Following a couple of years at global pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, she moved back into the charity sector as Head of Legal for Diabetes UK. She is currently General Counsel and Company Secretary for WWF-UK.

Asif Shakoor

Asif is a highly effective, proactive and driven lawyer with extensive legal and public policy experience gained within charity, private and public sectors. Asif offers a wealth of knowledge, skills and experience to continually drive success. A natural strategic thinker who drives organisations forward, effectively managing and overcoming challenges and achieving objectives. Asif is currently in-house counsel for AMJ International, a faith based grant giving organisation promoting humanitarian efforts around the world.

Louisa Reay

Louisa originally qualified as a corporate lawyer before moving to in-house commercial roles. Louisa moved to WaterAid in 2018 as WaterAid’s first in-house lawyer and her first charity sector role.

Rob Carter

Rob is a solicitor with several years’ experience working in the education and charity sectors, at first in private practice, and for the last few years in-house at The Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), a charitable independent schools trust. Rob has a generalist role, but most of his work involves supporting the estates team with property issues and all other departments with commercial and contractual issues. He particularly likes turning his attention to ensuring good governance in the Trust, and helping the trustees and the various committees to achieve this. Outside of work, Rob is a keen runner and cyclist, and also likes to travel around the country to support his football team, Southampton.

Ricardo Gomes Da Silva

Ricardo is a practicing solicitor who worked in private practice for 6 years, before going in-house at an international property development company. Ricardo then moved into the charity sector in 2010 as senior counsel for The Abbeyfield Society, before coming to Family Action as General Counsel in 2014. In 2016, Ricardo broadened his responsibilities at Family Action by becoming General Counsel & Director of Systems, which incorporates all of Family Action’s People, Facilities, Legal, Data Protection and Technology functions. Ricardo is also a member of the Charity Law Association and currently the Chair of LinC.

Welcome

Welcome to LinC

The LinC Committee