Our Episode Transcripts are produced by Descript. Some words/dialogue may not be transcribed with 100% accuracy.
Ellie: [00:00:00] So thank you so much for joining us on Law Talks today. And to start off the interview, please could you tell me each your current career stage and then how you became involved in the legal profession.
Dominika: I guess I can start. First and foremost, thank you so much for having us on the podcast. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we're very excited to be here. My name is Diminika and I am currently a legal officer at Opportunity Green, which is an environmental NGO focusing on finding innovative pathways to tackling climate change.
Just to flag that I'm not currently a qualified lawyer, but I do work in this kind of legal capacity, mostly in legal research. Essentially my background is quite complicated because I started with a degree in psychology. So my bachelor's degree is actually in psychology, which I really loved and have no regrets about doing.
But while I was [00:01:00] undertaking that degree, I I did a summer school on climate justice, essentially. And that's how I was introduced to the concept of climate change and how it impacts societies and people unevenly. And I was introduced to this kind of more general idea of social justice as well. And that's what led me to, I guess sorry.
Yeah. That's what led me. That's what motivated me, I guess. To see how I can, yeah, do something meaningful with my life, do something where I can have real, actual, tangible change. And that has led me down the legal path so that I could kind of focus on human rights and achieving impact that way.
And here I am since then I've done the GDL. The graduate diploma in law. I then undertook a master's degree at the University of Amsterdam focusing on public international law.
And [00:02:00] finally, I undertook the barrister training course although, as I said, I'm not a barrister as of yet because I haven't had pupillage. So here I am.
Ming Zee: And hi, everyone. My name is Ming Zee T. Ming Zee is my first name. I'm currently an associate at the global law firm A& O Sherman. I'm in their environment, climate and regulatory team in London. And I train there. And just just a disclaimer here. I'm not wrapping the firm on this podcast. All opinions are my own.
So before I was a solicitor or in training I worked briefly with the chance relaying project which is a fantastic nonprofit and they aim to scale climate action through climate aligned contracting and contractual language. So that was a bit of a. pre training contract gig. And even before that I did my undergraduate degree in at Oxford reading law [00:03:00] including environmental law with the very wonderful professor Liz Fisher.
And then I went on to do, you know, a couple of research projects with professors at the LSE Grantham. Institute of Climate Change, as well as the National University of Singapore's Asia Pacific Centre for Environmental Law. So yeah, you know, my background's in law. I've pretty much come from, you know, law school and environmental law straight into practice.
But, but I will say what really influenced me during university Was being active in the climate society. And the Oxford Climate Society had such had and has such a great roster of people coming in to speak and also interdisciplinary. Content from you know your climate scientists and you know, anthropologists and sort of, I think that was really the genesis of why I got so passionate in this issue wasn't really through a legal lens, but.
More kind of climate sustainability focused. Okay. This is this is where we need to go [00:04:00] And then how does the law feed into that? So that's my journey.
Riley: Hi, I'm Riley. I'm an associate in the litigation and dispute resolution team at McFarland's and same as Ming Zee, I'm not here repping McFarland's, all views are my own.
My background into my career was probably a bit more straightforward than Dominika's and a bit closer to Ming Zee's. So Originally, I wanted to be a vet, but I am not very good at science or maths, but really loved animals. So I thought, gosh, I can't do that. What am I going to do? Ended up going to do law at UCL.
And in my final year, I did a module on environmental law. And I studied with Professor Stephen, who now teaches the Environmental Lawyering and Ethics course on the Environmental Law Masters at UCL. And I think having studied with Professor Vaughan, I don't think you can come away not feeling inspired and wanting to [00:05:00] learn more about climate issues.
And because I had that interest in animals from the very beginning, I was very interested in how I could draw The connections between the climate crisis and the crisis facing biodiversity, but was also trying to pursue a career into corporate law at the time because wasn't really aware of the different pathways that you can take.
So I went straight from doing my undergrad at UCL to do the LPC now. SQE. But started a blog while I was there, which sort of focused on animal rights, animal welfare issues. And then when I finished doing my LPC, I started a job as a paralegal at music licensing company, and then COVID hit. So I was like, wow, I've got all this free time where I don't have like any friends or family to see.
I'm, Then did a master's in international human rights law with a French university online. And at the same time, which, you know, looking back was a bit insane, but I did a module [00:06:00] with the late Professor Stephen Wise from the Non Human Rights society also online through Harvard and we focus on animal rights jurisprudence and studying international human rights masters while doing a course in animal rights jurisprudence was just a really nice way of bringing all of those different threads together and then Obviously ended up at McFarland's and I'm now trying to sort of push through, you know, ESG and climate into my day to day career, really.
That's me in a nutshell.
Ellie: Thank you so much. It's really interesting always to hear how different people's pathways tend to be firstly, getting into the law and then secondly, finding that like interest and I guess, niche area that they want to pursue. And similarly, I, I originally studied biomedical science at university, so slightly less traditional.
And now you're focusing on the area that you guys have all found your passion in. Could you tell us what Legal Voices for the Future is and then what the kind of main objective of the initiative is?[00:07:00]
Ming Zee: We founded it as a space. We co founded it as a space by young lawyers for young lawyers for really collaborative learning and community building. I think, you know, me and the co founders thought there was this huge gap in legal education. where essentially climate issues, biodiversity issues, ESG issues are just not covered mandatorily in any bar course, the SQE, you know, the GDL or any of your mandatory law school modules.
It's, it's a very much, you know, listening to Riley and Dominika, it's very much a self kind of starting, okay, if I'm interested in this I'll go and learn, I'll go and take a module on it. Yet, arguably, this is, you know, the greatest crisis our generation faces and impacts law and legal practice as much as it impacts the broader sections of the economy.
And also the co founders saw this huge demand from our peers and junior lawyers to be able to [00:08:00] integrate. Their real worries and concerns about, you know, climate issues into their professional practice and not having to have this dichotomous choice between, Oh, you know, am I complete corporate seller?
Or, you know, do I go into like, you know more, more, more values oriented work. And I think this is the space that we want to hold to be able to, you know, develop those ideas. And so, so. Legal Voices for the Future was born and our objectives are threefold. The first is to give voice to young lawyers on you know, these most pressing planetary and social issues that we face.
The second is to allow young lawyers to gain the benefit of high quality, peer led education. I think a lot of, you know, law is so hierarchical and we don't value the knowledge that young people have and, and passions and interests of that. And the third is to enable young lawyers to connect with their peers and feel empowered to play their part in this, you know, societal transition to [00:09:00] net zero, to, to nature positive.
Society.
Ellie: Thank you. Firstly, that was, that was a really clear kind of overview of the objectives and I completely, I mean, I am just, I guess I've sort of just started my now final year of a law degree and I haven't covered anything really to to do with the environment and obviously so many people want to learn about it.
But yeah, it just doesn't seem to be kind of typical on the curriculum. So having the opportunity to get involved and actually learn about these, I imagine quite complex legal issues as well that have such a big impact in everyday life. And to focus, I after kind of researching, legal voices for the future to focus on the sort of structure.
So what is the stewardship group and kind of who are the members? How did everyone get involved? And yeah, how, how does that kind of structure work?
Dominika: Yeah, so we currently call ourselves the stewardship committee. Which I appreciate is quite a niche [00:10:00] term, but we like it for now. And we are a group of volunteers who run legal voices for the future.
We're responsible for running our flagship events the knowledge sessions, which happen every month, as well as other events, such as kind of socials, seminars, webinars, and so on. We also help members of Legal Voices run their own events if they wish to do so and we do take great pride in how active our members have been to date and we're really really grateful for their contributions and we hope that continues to be so.
We're also responsible for Legal Voices development which includes kind of all sorts of things ranging from fundraising to more admin work. We're currently in the process of incorporating as a kind of more formal organization, as well as thinking about our partnerships and strategic vision.
Currently, there are 10 of us. Mostly, I would say the members kind of work in private practice. [00:11:00] But we also have a couple of in house lawyers. So we have Jomna, who works at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. We have Harriet, who works at the Government Legal Department as a legal advisor to DEFRA, which is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
As well as, I guess, I classify in that category as well. As someone who works at an NGO, and we have Flora as well, who's a barrister at 39 Essex, focusing on environmental planning and public law. Stewardship Committee members obviously do a whole range of different work, but I would say probably, you know, in, in one way or another, all of our work touches somehow on issues surrounding the environment, climate change, and or ESG.
And then just moving on to how I got involved with Legal Voices. I was really lucky in that my personal friend, Matilda Graham, who was one of the founding members of Legal Voices, was also someone I was [00:12:00] working with at the time that Legal Voices was kind of first set up. I was a paralegal at Bates Wells and Matilda was training there and she is a lawyer.
And I was there from the very first event. I was really, really excited to hear that there was such an initiative going on because I had just come back from spending some time at the European Court of Human Rights. Where we also set up a very similar group of just kind of people who are passionate about specific issues.
And so it was really, really amazing to see that something like that was happening in London and that I could once again be surrounded by people who care about the same stuff. as me. And so that's, that's how I got involved and I've been involved ever since. Hope to stay involved.
Ming Zee: Just me jumping in here. And I think just as a, as a preface to not get confused Legal Voices is a membership group. So we've got lots of members. It's free. You can sign up on a membership mailing list. You just get out emails. You can attend our events to be fair [00:13:00] members of the public and also attend our events.
So please do and then the stewardship group kind of sits. Above that, and helps, you know, run the events, talk about, you know strategy, fundraising, partnerships, all the, all the good stuff that Dominika said, but that's 10 of us. So I think there might be a bit of confusion between membership and stewardship group members and, okay, so that there, those are two things.
And in terms of who are our members, aka who, who attends our events, who are we speaking to, who are we, you know, trying to get engagement from I use the term young lawyers. It's not necessarily in terms of age. You, you do have, you know, age wise young lawyers, people just entering the profession, trainees, paralegals, people still in education junior associates, but also people who are transitioning into this field.
We have a lot of mid career changes, you know, people who are, you know, I don't want to be a derivatives lawyer anymore. I want to go into biodiversity and nature related law. [00:14:00] Anyone who is new to the space and wants to learn and has, you know, something that they want to offer as well. That's who we see our membership as and want to reach out to as well.
Yeah. And how? How did I get involved with this initiative? So I was one of the co founders. For me, it was this community. I started this when I was in my first seat as a trainee and I think it was incredibly isolating coming from the open mindedness of university.
You know, I was involved in running the climate change journal. I was involved in climate society going into this hyper hyper corporate space where you're expected to mask your idealism and, you know, just, you know, head down, do the work. You've got this hierarchy, your supervisors tell you to do this thing, you just do it.
So LVF was for me like a space to [00:15:00] find other like minded junior lawyers going through the same thing, to find community. And also like an opportunity to get your voice heard. You know, so, you know, running your own seminars, inviting your own speakers to have a fireside chat with other experts on ESG instead of, you know, like writing your senior script when they get to present at this fancy ESG conference that, you know, you're just in the sidelines taking notes at and I think there's a point around here and it's an intergenerational Equity piece here, where the knowledge of young people are especially undervalued in our profession because, you know, law elevates seniority, tenure, your PQE, and your black letter legal skills you know, that that are honed through years of practice, and that's legitimate.
But I think young people have a very particular kind of knowledge a perspective and a sense of urgency. And I think that's [00:16:00] important in the climate crisis. And as you know, people who are going to be affected and are currently affected by the climate crisis. And these voices need to be heard and nurtured.
Riley: I mean, I just can only echo everything that Dominika and Ming Zee have said. I think, you know, LVF really is a space that is focused on community. And that's, you know, how I got involved initially. Got involved because I knew Jeanetta Sedlikova, one of the previous co founders of LVF.
We had an informal coffee one day and she said, Oh, we're about to have our first launch of our event. And I thought, okay, you know, this sounds kind of like a group of people who I feel like I could fit in with. And I was also at the very beginning of my training contract. I was in a corporate department, you know, working crazy hours and, you know, that's not my passion.
My passion was. [00:17:00] The biodiversity, human rights and the climate crisis. And I went to the first LVF session and I just sort of felt this sense of belonging and a sense of home. And then kept going back to knowledge sessions and getting to know different people. And I think that sense of community and that feeling of belonging and a shared passion for something is it's invaluable, really.
And I think that really shines through in the stewardship committee as well. I mean, I've been on the committee for a year now and really excited to be on the committee for another year. But just to touch on, you know, what the 10 of us do as a stewardship committee, I think, you know, we, As Dominika and Ming Zee said, we have a range of different things that we were working on, including incorporating as a more formal organization, fundraising, partnerships, but we take all of those decisions on a very consensual basis.
Generally, there's only a few decisions that are sort of taken just by the chair and the co chairs. Otherwise, we're, we have a very collaborative, very [00:18:00] supportive, inclusive community between the 10 of us. And I think, you know, we split things up between us because we all have jobs, we all have different things going on in our lives, and we're all very conscious of that.
those other commitments. So for example, Ming Zee, Dominika and I are here today with you Ellie, which is a really great opportunity for all of us and to share LVF on behalf of the other members of the Stewardship Committee. But there's been interviews going on this week with other members, Harriet's preparing her December Knowledge Session, and then Normally, if it's a member or one of the stewardship committee, we always have members of the stewardship committee assisting.
So Marina and I have been helping Harriet with LinkedIn posts, with finding a venue, with liaising with the GRI, who are one of our partners. So we just have this very great community within the 10 of us as well. And I think again, that feeling of community and that feeling of belonging and sharing very similar passions and being able to say, actually, do you know what, it's really tough [00:19:00] at the moment and the climate crisis has got on top of me and being able to have that group to come to and say, Hey, I just.
Do you feel the same way as me? Is there like a light at the end of the tunnel? And then, you know, recently both Ming Zee and Dominika have said things to me that, you know, I will take with me probably for the rest of my career and the rest of my life. That lift me up when I'm feeling like that. So I think, I can only echo what they've, what they've both said.
But it is definitely that sense of community and the wider membership. But also, within the stewardship committee.
Ellie: Thank you. I mean, I can definitely see as you're all of you have spoken that that sense of community coming through and how much I guess, like benefit as well. You, you all seem to get from being part of this community and being part of this stewardship committee as well.
And I think, yeah, definitely touching on things. I know you mentioned about the kind of transition from university to need to be working in the kind of corporate world I can, obviously it's not everyone's experience, but there's a lot of universities, sort [00:20:00] of, there's a place for everyone. And there's so much that you can do to get involved in different climate groups and it's such a area where you can really pursue your passion.
And I can imagine going to. Such a busy kind of corporate job. It can, I mean, I have friends that have further ahead of me in their legal career and have started, and it can feel like you have to just focus on climbing the ladder and having this kind of initiative where people can really meet and continue what they're passionate about and also relate it to their legal career.
I think, yeah, I think that comes across really clearly in all the benefits. And Part, in part of your answers, you sort of alluded to this a little bit, but as you have such different careers some more kind of of the traditional legal route and a really nice range in, you know, I mean different masters and working in like international courts, sounds really interesting.
I wondered how you're finding at the moment legal voices for the future kind of further or complement your different legal careers and how you, I guess, bring that with you into your careers and your [00:21:00] work.
Dominika: For me, I guess, first and foremost, legal voices has just been a treasure trove of information.
And here I'm not only referring to knowledge sessions. I'm also referring to just the, The wide variety of people that I've met who work, you know, not only in law firms and not even only in a legal profession, but also we have journalists coming to our sessions. We have community organizers, activists, and so on and so forth.
And of course, you know, as, as we've spoken about at length, we have one thing that unites us, which is a passion for the climate crisis and the planetary crises and how to solve them. It has been. Just so incredibly inspiring to see all the different ways in which all of these different people coming from such different backgrounds fit these considerations into their work.
You know, ranging from kind of people who work in international shipping or people who work with the insurance industry and [00:22:00] so on and so forth. And it's just this kind of realization of just how ubiquitous climate concerns and climate considerations are in the world. And just how much. can be done across the board by different people doing different things.
And it's just kind of given me this additional drive and motivation, I guess, that not all is lost, that all of these brilliant people are kind of working together for this great cause. And I think in terms of how it benefited my career, I guess The way my current job works is that I do a lot of thinking about kind of potential legal strategies and I do loads of kind of scoping exercises on seeing how legal tools can be leveraged in a wide variety of, I guess, key industries or particularly emitting sectors such as, for example, international shipping and aviation or buildings or agriculture, etc.
And it has been really helpful to see what everyone else is doing [00:23:00] because it has encouraged me to think kind of creatively and open my eyes to once again, kind of finance flows and ESG and all of these other areas that I would not have otherwise been exposed to. So it has truly been invaluable.
Ming Zee: And the knowledge sessions and the programming absolutely feeds into my ability to advise clients. I sit in Eno Sherman's Climate Environment Regulatory Law team. So that's a specialist advisory team. We do a mix of Both transactional work. So you're, you know, M and a due diligence piece.
You know, your project financings, you know, the E. N. S. P's where you're talking about environmental social standards applicable to energy projects, but then also discreet pieces of advice and memos on, say the EU deforestation law or, you know, the corporate sustainability due diligence law.
And [00:24:00] for us, what clients pay us for is for deep and technical knowledge. And the ESG space is such a broad and such complex space. So, you know, really any avenue of learning helps me in my practice and kind of layers upon what I already know, making lateral connections. You know, people. Come into legal voices with their proposals for different topics, topics that you may not think you're interested about. But when you attend it, you think, Oh, this is actually super cool and super relevant for my practice area as well.
I think also another way that the voices has helped me not so much as a stewardship committee member, but as just a member of pitching and delivering my own knowledge session.
The process of so so I. I spoke on renewable energy subsidies specifically for nuclear and offshore wind. The process of prepping a knowledge session really consolidates your knowledge and makes you very punchy in the way you deliver things. And it hones your speaking skills. That makes you think about the audience and who you're talking to and all of this feeds back into you know, when you're in a work context to do like a client pitch, you're just that much.
more ready, that much better because you've done it before. And I think finally, for me, it's also the networking because you're meeting other [00:26:00] juniors from other, you know, positions in other law firms or corporates who will, you know, progress as you progress and might be clients at some point, or maybe you might want to go in house at some point and then you have a contact there already.
So, so yeah, multiple, multiple ways that LVF has helped my career.
Riley: And again, I think I can echo all of those different ways that LVF's definitely also helped with my career. And I think one way it's really helped me is to give me a bit of a confidence boost to be honest to take these really pressing issues into a corporate environment where the focus at the moment just, frankly, isn't on those issues, because there are so many issues that a corporate law firm has to take into consideration for so many different clients.
And before I found LVF, I, I felt very much [00:27:00] like this wasn't something I could talk about in a corporate environment because it just wasn't relevant to my corporate clients. You know, my background is in litigation and I can say with confidence that I, you know, don't advise on climate environmental litigation at the moment because that's just not what our clients are focused on.
But finding LVF Really has given me the confidence to be able to take, you know, climate, human rights, and biodiversity issues back into my law firm and say, actually, hold on a second, these are really important. And if your clients aren't worried about them now, they're going to be worried about them in a year, two years, five years, it's coming, and I'm the one that knows about it.
And having that confidence to sort of back yourself as a junior legal professional, when as Ming Zee said, you know, Law firms are very hierarchical sometimes and you at the bottom of the food chain are the one with actually more information and more knowledge on these issues because we've sort of grown up with this pressing [00:28:00] concern.
It's hard sometimes to be like, well actually I know way more than you. I'm going to get out there and I'm going to start building a brand for myself. And LVF has just really given me the confidence to do that. So, you know, again, it builds on those soft skills to be able to say, well, actually I can write about climate litigation and, you know, I've just finished writing a piece about biodiversity litigation trends and greenwashing for animal agriculture.
And there is no way that I would have been confident enough to be able to go and say, hold on a second. I think this is really interesting and corporate clients are going to be interested in these trends. So again, you know, that's confidence in your own career. That's confidence in your own knowledge.
It's written skills. I think presenting my own knowledge session was really important for me. And I'm not very good at public speaking. I found it really daunting, but being in that very supportive environment, you know, Marina looked over my speech. I think Harriet practiced it with me. It was just something that I can now go back into my firm [00:29:00] and sort of replicated that.
knowledge session, I've talked about directors duties and, and how they impact the climate and biodiversity. And I think for me, that's been sort of the biggest boost of it as well. It's, you know, it opens doors, because you get to know so many different people. And I've definitely been able to go to webinars and seminars and different networking groups with different people just because.
You sort of have the confidence to build your own personal brand. Yeah, I would say that's that's how it's definitely helped my career.
Ellie: Thank you. I think that that really showed across your answers like at the breadth of ways that Being part of legal voices for the future can can benefit your career both in actual, interactions with clients And then also As you said, sort of the soft skills, the developing confidence and, and your own brand.
And I think all of you throughout this interview have mentioned these knowledge sessions. So I was really keen to, to ask about this and discuss it a little bit further. So yeah, I mean, I wanted to [00:30:00] ask you what the kind of aim, and you've spoken a little bit about this, but like the typical content of the knowledge sessions, I'm sure a lot of our listeners would be really interested in, in joining up as members and, and attending some of these.
Riley: Yeah, I mean, we would obviously love to have new members. We're always really grateful to see like really big packed rooms full of members and lots of people online. So anyone new, definitely always have an open door for everyone. And as Dominika said, our knowledge sessions really are our sort of flagship cornerstones of LVF.
And the aim of them, I would summarize, is threefold. We aim to educate people, we aim to help people reflect, and we aim to help people connect through our knowledge sessions. And we do that by splitting them into three parts. So every knowledge session has three parts to it. We've just switched it around recently.
So now our creative content is at the beginning of our knowledge sessions. And we ask whoever is presenting to come with a book or a painting, a video, a [00:31:00] poem, you know, anything kind of creative where We can gather our members all together, reflect on what that creative content is, think about some questions that the speakers put together, and just forge real connections over that creative content.
And, you know, we've had Sarah presented some amazing photographs from a photographer looking at the impact of rising sea level, and those photographs were just so moving and the conversations that we had around those photographs. Again, we're really moving. People had very like introspective, very reflective things to say about them.
And it's just a really nice way to sort of get people together at the beginning of our knowledge sessions and start thinking about the topic. And then we move on to the second part, which is the presentation, which normally lasts about 20 minutes. And the aim of that is for our speaker. So it could be a member of the stewardship committee.
It could be a member to present on their topic of choice. So, for example, recently I did my knowledge session on the illegal [00:32:00] wildlife trade and its connection with zoonotic disease. So in my 20 minute presentation, the aim is to give a broad background on what the illegal wildlife trade was, how it comes to pass, how it's connected and what the legal frameworks are that sort of overarch on those issues.
And the aim of it really is to give a broad brush introduction because we know that our members probably actually don't have. You know, a real deep knowledge of these subject areas and the aim is to educate people and then we have either a Q& A with a single person or with a panel. And the aim of that is to get, you know, experts in the field to come in, speak to us, speak to our members, and get a bit deeper into the topic.
And it gives members an opportunity to ask questions themselves. And that's really where the education piece, again, feeds in. But it's also connection as well. And then, I guess it's a four part, really. then try and always go for a little informal social afterwards just again to carry on that connection and community [00:33:00] building.
But it's, it's been a really successful format and we're thinking about ways in which we can improve it and how we can keep those conversations after our knowledge sessions going after they've, after they've finished to keep people thinking and keep educating themselves going forward.
Ellie: Thank you. Thank you. That was really really clear and I can see how. attending. I think it's really the kind of creative beginning. It sounds super gripping, particularly if you go to a topic, I'm thinking from my perspective that you feel you don't know much about having that quite kind of different start.
Usually I feel like I've gone to some legal topics. It tends to go straight into like the Kind of like nitty gritty of the topic. It's quite a good way to get involved and think about, I guess, the, the whole range of perspectives on the issue. So thank you. That was, that was a really interesting perspective.
And I guess kind of as a follow up question I know that you've talked about knowledge sessions that you've run and prepared between the three of But what were some kind of pressing recent [00:34:00] topics that Legal Voices for the Future has focused on or held sessions on, or kind of as an alternative, just any particular topics that were personal favorites of yours?
Dominika: This might be a little bit cheeky, but all of the sessions that we've had so far this year have been incredible. So with your permission, I can just summarize kind of what we've done so far. We have had. Amazing sessions some of which were led by our incredible stewardship committee members, but also we've had many that were led by legal voices members, which is once again, something that we're very, very proud of and very grateful for.
We have had absolutely brilliant guest experts truly just You know, world leading kind of people in their respective areas, which was amazing. And they kindly lend us their time to do these kind of Q and A aspects of the sessions. And we've had some really, really interesting creative content as well, ranging from an exercise in imagination through to [00:35:00] poems, photographs, and kind of comedic videos and so on.
And we have had loads of insightful discussions as well, where our members kind of share their insights from their respective areas of expertise, but also their personal stories, which can be really, really moving, kind of motivating and inspiring to see. We've had quite a few kind of emotional discussions as well as really, really professional and insightful ones.
I won't be able to do all of these sessions justice as I summarize them, but just to flag that all of them are available as recordings for anyone to watch back. And this will be on our website, which is if I may just plug that in www. legalvoicesforthefuture. co. uk. Now that that's out of the way we started the year with a session on the rights of nature, which is a legal movement that seeks to recognize that nature has inherit rights, which was an insanely insightful discussion.
We then had a session on ESG kind of the framework itself and how it's applied and main issues. [00:36:00] We discussed environmental whistleblowing as well. And we heard kind of firsthand accounts of environmental whistleblowing, which was just absolutely Invaluable really. We had a session on climate finance and how the law can be leveraged to redirect finance flows, which is very timely, particularly considering what's going on at COP 29.
We had a session on the insurance industry as well and kind of the link between climate change and risk. We discussed human rights and due diligence with a focus on corporate reporting, which once again has this very clear kind of connection to a more corporate world and corporate clients. Then we did a brilliant session, which Riley already mentioned on international wildlife trade.
And I know Riley very humbly suggested that she wasn't that good at public speaking, but I just want to say that she was absolutely incredible. And most recently we had another amazing session, which focused on competition law and sustainability. We have lots more in the [00:37:00] pipeline, so please, please do come in either in person, if you're in London or online, we would be more than happy to see you.
Ellie: Thank you very much. I know that was really nice to hear, to hear the range of different, different knowledge sessions that you've had. And yeah, I think also as you, as you kind of explained, having not just the stewardship committee, but also having different members who are, who have kind of particular expertise running sessions.
Sounds really interesting and, and kind of shows how much of the community you can get involved with. And kind of to the listeners and also, so you guys are aware, I will definitely put the links in the show notes. So if you're listening now, if you go down, I'll put the website and I think you also mentioned the LinkedIn and yeah, any other kind of resources.
Media so you can go in and sign up, but I thank you so much for for joining me on Law Talks today And it's been so interesting hearing all about legal voices for the future and also about Your different legal careers and how [00:38:00] this ties in.
Riley: Thank you for having us.
Ming Zee: Yeah, this has been great
Dominika: Thank you very much.
Ming Zee: For all aspiring lawyers get involved.
Comments