I’m really excited to announce that I’ve been awarded the Women in Innovation Award 2021! 

Launched in 2016 by Innovate UK, the Women in Innovation award was set up to engage, develop, and support the women-led innovations of today. The award provides financial support, mentoring and business growth opportunities for women leading the way on today’s innovations. 

When I started my career as a solicitor in 2009, a male-dominated profession that struggled with the idea of a tattooed single mother, I was expected to follow tradition and accept the limitations of the industry I was in. 

But, I couldn’t do it. 

In a profession filled with so much possibility, it was frustrating to see it being held back by outdated practices, antiquated technologies and narrow-minded belief systems. 

Eventually I found the confidence to give myself the creative freedom that so many of my colleagues lacked. It taught me to trust my ideas, push boundaries, and broaden the horizons of the industry.

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As the first lawyer to ever win this award, I’m thrilled to have the recognition and support to accelerate my vision.

Three years since starting my law firm, it’s an award-winning tech-driven firm committed to challenging the industry for the better. But there’s still a lot of work to do. 

I’ve come face to face with the good, the bad, and the ugly of my profession, and one thing that has always stuck with me has been the desperate need to innovate; my team and I are uniquely placed to drive such innovation. 

We often see how a failure to get legal advice in the very early stages of starting a business presents problems further down the line, which are more expensive and time-consuming to fix than addressing the problem correctly at the outset. 

Entrepreneurs have a number of legal questions that they don't know the answer to. When you're starting a business, making informed decisions is critical to mitigating risk. However, for a number of reasons, founders are reluctant to approach a law firm so they typically resort to using Google or asking their peers, where they are presented with a wealth of conflicting and unreliable answers. 

There is a gap between using a search engine or 'crowdsourcing' advice and the provision of legal advice by regulated law firms. With the support of this award, I’m seeking to close that gap by building an AI-powered interface that will cost effectively connect entrepreneurs with the legal advice they need to run their business. 

As the first lawyer to ever win this award, I’m thrilled to have the recognition and support to accelerate my vision whilst surrounding myself with brave thinkers from other industries, which both the legal industry and I have so much to learn from.