Reflections on ‘Your Career in Human Rights and The Humanitarian Sector’ with LWOB Student Division

On Wednesday, 14 February , the School of Law held its annual ‘Your Career in Human Rights and the Humanitarian Sector’ event in collaboration with Lawyers Without Borders Student Division. We heard from three inspiring speakers with different experiences and career pathways in the human rights sector: Lindsey Reynolds (convenor/legal member of the Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland and Panel Member of Redress Scotland), Sarah Bannerman (Senior Solicitor at Clan Child Law), and Rachel Walker (Partner at Legal Services Agency). After a fascinating panel discussion, we held a Q&A session chaired by the committee members of LWOB, followed by a drinks reception where we had the chance to network with the speakers.

The key theme from the evening was the conceptualisation of ‘social justice’ work (e.g. housing law, mental health law, children’s hearing and referral etc) as human rights practice. All three of the panel members have law centre backgrounds. Sarah, currently Senior Solicitor at Clan Child Law Centre, remarked that during her time as a student here at Glasgow in the early 2010s, her understanding of a career in human rights mainly involved international courts, for example, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court. Lindsey commented that when she first started working at Legal Services Agency, she thought that she was just ‘helping people’; she did not conceptualise her work as human rights practice.

Nonetheless, the speakers agreed that there has been a paradigm shift in this regard, led in part by recent efforts to incorporate economic, social, and cultural rights into Scots law, through the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024, and now the forthcoming Human Rights Bill. It was said that ‘Sometimes you can’t see human rights jobs in Scotland because ‘human rights’ does not feature in the title’. The speakers expressed their hope that this shift in understanding and awareness will broaden students’ eyes to the wide variety of social justice roles available in Scotland.

The panel spoke about their experiences and the challenges they have faced in their careers as ‘successful women in law’. Lindsey talked about the difficulties of the work-life balance when you have a family life and how this affected her decision to move into public sector roles, where there is more accommodation for flexible working. She emphasised getting a job share role instead of a part time role, due to the unbalanced nature of the amount of work and time in most part time jobs. In addition to the work-life balance, both Rachel and Sarah spoke about the increasing understanding of vicarious trauma in the profession, and how LSA and Clan Child Law have put in place support for their solicitors. They both discussed the feeling of burnout in legal aid jobs; particularly Rachel who worked in a high street firm for her traineeship, who described doing all manner of jobs and travelling extensively across Scotland.

The speakers emphasised the importance of pro bono work and volunteering. They also mentioned the importance of building your networks at an early stage in your career. On the other hand, we also discussed the ethical dimensions of involving students in pro bono work. Indeed, it was pointed out that pro bono opportunities privilege students with time and financial resources. Lindsey also talked about finding paid opportunities, even if they are not necessarily related to law. She mentioned the transferable skills that can be used in the next steps of your career.

Following that, it has been mentioned that the transferable skills and the past experiences (law related or not) can all be useful in interviews. Lindsey, who has a long experience of interviewing others, highlighted the importance of ‘being yourself’ and bringing all of you, your skills, experiences to the interview -regardless of how unrelated you think they are to a career in human rights. Rachel highlighted that her work in a pub has come in useful in her practice because it taught her how to better communicate better with difficult clients and handle emotive situations whereas Sarah said the volunteering jobs that she undertook -which were not strictly ‘legal’- helped with her career path as well. They underlined that ‘It is this real-world experience which sets candidates apart from each other’.

Another tip they mentioned is that the majority of jobs in the public sector use competency-based interviews, and so the STAR method should be used. Sarah talked about how having good references help in applications. She mentioned that the reference she got after being a research assistant for Prof Tams, led to her successfully applying for a role at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the experience there led her to the International Bar Association (IBA) in London.

Finally, the panel discussed legal policy work as another tool to effect social change. In this regard, Lindsey said that in addition to strategic litigation, undertaking legal policy work in her role at Amnesty International felt like ‘using another door to change things’. There was also some discussion about the ethics of public interest lawyering and the importance of balancing carefully with client interests. In this regard, both Clan and JustRight Scotland have separate policy and campaigning teams, though the individual client centred work has a role in informing the policy positions.

To conclude, it was a very inspiring and informative event for the aspiring human rights lawyers in the room. The speakers gave plenty of advice and talked about how they chose their career paths, and the factors that weighed in the balance when they were making their decisions. Hearing about three successful women’s journey in the human rights sector, the challenges they faced, and the impact of their jobs on people’s lives was amazing and filled all of us with hope and motivation for our future careers.

~ Beste Yasav