Thank you Amanda Finlay who steps down as our Chair this week

This Trustee Week we have to thank Amanda Finlay CBE, who has been our Chair for a wonderful 10 years and is now stepping down. Amanda has been wisely guiding us, energetically endorsing us, and tirelessly supporting our  small staff team.

We are immensely grateful for her dedication, and her kind and unstinting encouragement for staff and board alike.

While we will miss her leadership enormously, we are delighted to  be able to continue to benefit from her breadth and depth of knowledge of justice policy in her continuing role as advisory consultant to Law for Life.

"As I retire as Chair of Law for Life for 12 years I look back on a time of challenges and exceptional  achivements and forward to a time of exceptional challenge and opportunity as our domain expertise is increasingly recognised in the new world of legal tech. Over the years our vibrant small charity has consistently been ahead of its time: moving to a presence on  mobile devices very early on, offering prize-winning online tools to help challenge DWP decisions, forging a groundbreaking partnership with Resolution to deliver unbundled family law advice, skilling up hundreds of trusted internediaries in the community through remote housing rights courses, and undertaking local legal needs research which starkly exposes the difficulties the most vulnerable face in tackling their problems. 

All this has been achieved by a dedicated and highly skilled team supported by a diverse and enthusiastic Board with expertise ranging  through  legal  and advice services to  health  delivery, crucial to  the renewed focus on the determinants of health  and health  justice partnerships.

They have been challenging and rewarding years. It is time for me to move on, remaining as a committed supporter of a cause dear to my heart: enhancing social justice by giving people the knowledge, skills and confidence to recognise and enforce their rights ."

Amanda Finlay CBE

Amanda leaves us in the capable hands of Vanessa Davies as interim Chair, while we recruit a new Chair. 

Find out more about what we are looking for in our next Chair.

November 2023