Expertise/experience
Yvonne is an education law specialist with over 12 years’ experience advising the education sector. Within the firm she heads the education pastoral team and the academies team. Yvonne is a solicitor advocate with higher rights of audience in both the civil and criminal courts. She has a Masters degree in International Law and Human Rights; and has a post graduate qualification in International Development Management.
Yvonne has co-written three books on education law and is a prolific writer of articles for education, legal and academic journals. She is a regular speaker at national education conferences including events for Optimus publishing, NASBM, GSA, and the Boarding Schools Association.
Yvonne’s work focuses on independent schools and academies, advising on all aspects of serious child protection incidents, complex parental/ student complaints, pupil exclusions, judicial reviews and discrimination claims. She also works with governments advising on child protection systems and the regulation of children’s services. Over the past ten years she has worked in Romania, Tajikistan, Moldova, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. She is an appointed expert to J.K. Rowling’s international children’s charity ‘Lumos’.
Her work developing innovative community legal services in deprived areas was recognised through two major awards in 2007: Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year (solicitors organisation category); and runner up for pro bono activity at the Law Society’s Excellence Awards. In 2005 she was featured as ‘Lawyer in the News’ in the Law Society Gazette when she appeared in the High Court for Muslim School girl Shabina Begum (Begum v Denbigh High School [2006] UKHL 15 ).
In November 2011 Yvonne was elected Chairman of the Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates, and is the first female to hold this office since solicitors were allowed to exercise higher rights of audience in 1994. She is a school governor at The Royal Hospital School, Suffolk.
Yvonne is recognised in the legal directories Chambers and Legal 500.
