I come from a “straight” legal background – trained at a top 20 global law firm and became senior solicitor in a top 100 law firm specialising in public and environmental law related matters.  In 2012 I was inspired by my experiences through the Occupy Movement to leave private law practice and begin a living research inquiry – what would a legal practice look like that could live up to question that the late Polly Higgins gifted to me: how do you “bring love into law”? 

Since finishing a Masters in Ecological Design Thinking at Schumacher College in 2016, the vehicle for grounding that that has become New Economy Law.

I bring into New Economy Law the learnings gained from Extinction Rebellion.  It was still only a nascent movement when I was invited by Gail Bradbrook to join its first Political Strategy team in late 2018.  Through co-leading its first Political Strategy, including and up to those first hopeful discussions with Michael Gove as Environment Secretary, I learnt that love can also come from a place of fierce protection and action, and that accountability has a place in the realm of love as much as its qualities of expansiveness and joy. 

NEL seeks to anchor its work in a set of values that could be called spiritual, particularly the values of “sacred trust” and “sacred balance” that are called for within Islamic/Sufi principles.

Grounding those beliefs into legal action – such as my work with the Good Law Project on a test case on the “Public Trust Doctrine” to safeguard rivers from sewage pollution, or my work with Nudge Community Builders to bring a high street into community ownership – is how I now conceive of love being brought into law.  

I also teach Environmental Law p/t at the University of Law, as well as a guest lecturer for Royal Holloway University’s Global Futures MSc.

Some Links

Talk at the Vaults Festival 2020: “Decoloniality & Rewilding Psyche

Resurgence & Ecologist articles & podcast:

Faith & Eco-spirituality

Bridging the political with the de-colonial and spiritual

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