2015 Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Winner

Miles & Partners are immensely proud to announce that Sarah Cove is this year’s winner of the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards 2015 in the Family category. Sarah was presented with the award last night in a ceremony which took place at the Plaisterers Hall in Central London where 500 lawyers gathered to honour their colleagues. Those shortlisted for the awards stood out for their total commitment to working for their clients and achieving the best possible outcomes on their clients’ behalf, often way beyond what some might consider the call of duty.

Sarah was presented with the award by Lord Justice (Andrew) McFarlane and Anna Jones from Sky News who said that the LALY judges considered the winner to be a true “grass roots” lawyer. In being presented with the award Sarah was being honoured for her outstanding work as a specialist children’s lawyer acting for young people who are the subject of, often acrimonious, care proceedings. In her nomination Sarah was praised by children’s guardians, amongst other things, for her “ability to develop a rapport with young clients, ensuring they feel part of the proceedings.”

On being presented with the award Sarah said she felt immensely proud to receive the award and was grateful to her team at Miles & Partners for the support given to her work which led to her nomination. She also paid tribute to the other lawyers who were nominated in the Family category for the outstanding work they did representing families and children. Of her own work representing children, particularly young teenagers, Sarah said “all they want is their voice to be heard” and she felt privileged to be in a position to make sure that their voices were heard.

The prestigious awards are organised by the Legal Aid Practitioners Group to celebrate the work and achievements of lawyers committed to working for publicly funded clients. In winning the award Sarah joins the ranks of trail-blazing lawyers like Louise Christian, Imran Khan, Michael Mansfield QC and Gareth Peirce and, not least, Miles & Partners’ own Sophy Miles and David Jockelson who won LALYs in 2010 for their achievements in the categories of Mental Health and Family Law.

For a full list of the awards in other categories please see below.

There are 13 awards in total this year.

1. LAPG committee special award: Bill Waddington, Robin Murray, Jonathan Black, Paul Harris
2. Outstanding achievement: Public Law Project
3. Public law: Marcia Willis-Stewart, Birnberg Peirce
4. Legal aid firm/not for profit agency: Central England Law Centre
5. Children’s rights: Noel Arnold (Coram Children’s Legal Centre)
6. Legal aid newcomer: Connor Johnston (Garden Court Chambers)
7. Social and welfare: Jo Renshaw (Turpin & Miller)
8. Family legal aid: Sarah Cove (Miles & Partners)
9. Family mediator: Margaret Pendlebury (MiD Mediation)
10. Legal aid barrister: Alison Pickup (Doughty Street)
11. Housing: Jayesh Kunwardia (Hodge Jones & Allen)
12. Criminal defence: Mark Ashford (TV Edwards)
13. Access to justice through IT: Courtnav (Royal Courts of Justice Advice Bureau & Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer)

The contents of this article are for the purposes of general awareness only. They do not purport to constitute legal or professional advice. The law may have changed since this article was published. Readers should not act on the basis of the information included and should take appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances.