Professor Carolyn Hamilton, Director
Professor Carolyn Hamilton is the Director of The Children’s Legal Centre, a position she has held since 1995. She is a well known child rights lawyer, who has published widely on issues of children’s rights and child law. Professor Hamilton is the Senior Legal Adviser for the Children’s Commissioner in England and the Child and Family Commissioner for the Legal Services Commission. She has acted as a consultant to UNICEF on child protection and juvenile justice in many countries, including in Georgia, Palestine, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Kosovo and to the UN Crime Prevention Branch on juvenile justice, working with the Ad-Hoc Expert Group on the Application of United Nations Standards and Norms. From 2001-2003, Professor Hamilton was appointed as Consultant on Juvenile Justice to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Douglas Hiscock, Operations Manager
Douglas Hiscock is Operations Manager and has responsibility for the development and ongoing management of the grants and contracts run in the UK. Douglas has worked at the Centre for five years and has been involved in the development of advocacy service in Essex and Suffolk. He has a BA in Psychology and has completed an MA in Child Studies in the Law Department of King’s College London.
Julia Thomas, Practice Manager
Julia Thomas is a senior solicitor (29 years qualified) who has worked at the Childrens Legal Centre since 2001. She is joint Practice Manager of the Legal Practice, and specialises in education law, particularly judicial review and other High Court actions.
Alason Carter, Practice Manager
Alason Carter is a senior solicitor (18 years qualified) who has worked at the Children’s Legal Centre since 2000. She is joint Practice Manager of the Legal Practice, specialising in education law including exclusions and legal issues facing children out of school, children with special educational needs and bullying. Alason is responsible for ensuring quality standards are met within the Legal Practice.
Shefali Shah, Head of London Office
Shefali Shah is the Head of the Children's Legal Centre’s London office and began working for the Centre in January 2008.She is a qualified solicitor with experience in the public and private sector of Children Act proceedings, adoption, family law, adult protection, community care, and asylum matters. She has conducted high profile cases and has extensive experience in training.Shefali has over 10 years experience as a Local Authority Solicitor and as a Manager of a Social Services Legal Team.She is member of the Law Society Children Panel and is an independent legal advisor on an adoption panel.
Rachel Harvey, Head of International Programmes
Rachel Harvey is the Head of International Policy and Programmes and has been with the CLC for over eight years. In addition to managing the international team, Rachel acts as a consultant for UNICEF and International NGOs, providing legal analyses of national frameworks for child protection and juvenile justice, technical assistance for legislative and policy reform and the development of grass roots projects and training on the implementation of children's rights. She has worked extensively in the CIS countries, but has also undertaken projects in Africa, Central America, and Eastern Europe.
Kirsten Anderson, Head of Research and Communications
Kirsten Anderson is an experienced socio-legal researcher with a particular interest in children’s rights. She formerly worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne Law School. As Head of Research and Communications, Kirsten carries out research projects in the areas of child rights and child law both in the UK and abroad and undertakes policy work in these fields, including providing responses to UK government consultations. She also oversees the production of the Centre’s publications and media commentary on child rights and child law.
John Palmer-Barnes, Finance Manager
John Palmer-Barnes is Finance Manager and is responsible for controlling, monitoring and the reporting of all financial matters and providing day to day financial support to management, staff and other stakeholders. John is a Member of the Association of Accounting Technicians (MAAT) and joined the Centre in September 2006.
Kamena Dorling – Legal and Policy Officer, Refugee and Asylum Seeking Children
Kamena runs the Refugee and Asylum Seeking Children’s Project for the Children's Legal Centre. She has worked closely with refugees for several years at the Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture, and the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre in Delhi. There she prepared reports and produced guides to Civil and Political Rights for use by human rights activists in India, before returning to England and working at Human Rights Watch in their Advocacy department. She has an LLM in International Human Rights Law.
Elisabetta Valdani, Office Manager
Elisabetta Valdani is Office Manager and joined the Children's Legal Centre in January 2002. She is responsible for the day to day running of the offices in Colchester and London.
