About us Who we are Staff Estelle du Boulay, Director Estelle joined our organisation as Director in 2016. She started out in the women’s sector as a full time sabbatical Women’s Officer at University of East London providing a women-only casework service alongside feminist campaigning in student women’s groups and liberation campaigns within the National Union of Students. She is a former management committee member for the pro-choice group National Abortion Campaign. Her background includes advice delivery and service management, volunteer management and capacity building and training community-based and migrant rights organisations including those working with young people. Her passion is in supporting teams whose work centres lived-experience by connecting independent advice delivery and outreach to impactful evidence-based campaign and policy work. She is the former Director of the anti-racist charity Newham Monitoring Project and a co-founder of the campaigning umbrella group Netpol. Her work in these organisations focused on increasing access to justice by challenging discrimination and seeking greater institutional accountability including supporting families seeking justice in relation to deaths in police custody. Jessye Berkowitz-Werner, Communications Manager Jessye joined Rights of Women in November 2019 to develop strategic communications to change the public narrative around sexual harassment. As of 2021, Jessye began working as Communications Manager, supporting the Director and legal teams in their public facing communications and campaigns work. Jessye has previous experience campaigning and advocating for survivors of domestic and sexual violence and was previously campaigns officer for human rights charity René Cassin, where she worked on hate crime, genocide, modern slavery, women's rights, and the Human Rights Act. Mary McGloin, Operations Manager A management graduate, Mary joined the voluntary sector in the early ‘90s and has held a number of management roles in various charities, often through periods of very significant change. Most of the beneficiaries she worked to support were women often dealing with multiple challenges. She is a strong proponent of services for women by women and is delighted she can be part of this organisations. At Rights of Women she is the lead on all elements of HR with a focus on ensuring our policies and framework support best practice. Her extensive experience in financial management supports Rights of Women in developing a framework of systems and reporting to maximise efficiency and use of funds. Rosa Ruiz, Office Manager Rosa is responsible for the smooth running of the office, managing databases and reports and coordinating our volunteers across our programmes. Originally from Peru, Rosa has been working and volunteering in the sector for many years as a helpline volunteer and VAWG advocacy coordinator in domestic abuse charities and as a policy assistant in an international charity. Rosa has a BA in Social Communication. In her spare time Rosa enjoys photography and gardening. Family and Criminal Law Caroline Baluch, Legal Officer Caroline delivers legal advice on the Rights of Women family law advice line. She works on a project focusing on women’s experiences of the family courts where there has been domestic abuse. Caroline is a qualified solicitor and worked in private practice for many years covering a range of family law. She has also worked at Citizens Advice at local and national level developing online content and legal updates. Caroline is an accredited member of Resolution for private law children and complex financial remedies and an accredited member of the Law Society’s Family Law Scheme. Chikondi Mbewe, Legal Officer Chikondi joined ROW as part of the family and criminal team in 2021 after volunteering for the family advice line for over 5 years. She is a qualified solicitor who has first-hand experience working with survivors of DA in refuges and support charities in her local area. Chikondi delivers advice to women on the family advice line at ROW and co-ordinates work with our Voices of Women panel of survivors. Joanna Shaw, Legal Officer Jo Shaw (Joanna) delivers legal advice on the Rights of Women family law advice lines. She was called to the Bar in 2000 and has practiced in family law, housing, employment and, by the end of her career at the Bar was an exclusively family practitioner, with a broad practice including public law (care proceedings), private law including Child Arrangements Orders, financial applications and injunctions. Jo has a wide experience of campaigning, policy and training and development, and enjoys all these aspects of her work at RoW. She is a Trustee/Director of the Parliament Project, which encourages, trains and supports women to seek elected office, and was Vice Chair of Liberty, the civil liberties organisation. She is an experienced personal development coach and enjoys knitting, (occasional) running and meditation. Hannah Couchman, Senior Legal Officer Hannah delivers legal advice to women on the Rights of Women criminal law advice line. She is a qualified barrister and previously practised criminal law before moving into policy and campaigning around justice and human rights. Prior to joining ROW, she led Liberty’s work on technology and civil liberties. She has also worked as a prison law caseworker and the Assistant Director of a children’s rights charity. Mandip Ghai, Senior Legal Officer Mandip manages and delivers our family and criminal law services and projects including the Ascent Project and is the author of our publication, Child arrangements and domestic violence: a handbook for women. She is a qualified solicitor. Having previously worked in private practice focusing primarily on domestic violence and the law relating to children, she has developed an acute understanding of the challenges facing women who have experienced domestic violence. Olive Craig, Senior Legal Officer Olive delivers legal advice to women on the Rights of Women family law advice line. She is highly experienced in delivering training around legal issues affecting women to professionals in the VAWG sector. She is a qualified solicitor and has practiced criminal law and family law. She previously worked in private practice representing a wide range of vulnerable people including victims of domestic violence. Her career has focused on children law, in particular, care proceedings and she is an accredited member of the Law Society’s children panel. Before joining Rights of Women, she briefly worked at a local authority gaining insight into their decision making processes. Shahzea Tahir, Legal Officer Shahzea is one of our senior family law solicitors having worked in private practise for over 20 years specialising in private and international family law matters. She has previously been an accredited member of the Advanced Family Law Panel and is a member of Resolution. Shahzea joined ROW in 2019 as a legal officer in the family team after having volunteered with ROW for over 15 years. She is also Founder of a Charity providing humanitarian aid to those living in impoverished conditions in socially and economically deprived areas. Continuing with her volunteering work Shahzea was appointed by the Royal College of Physicians as a lay representative for the General Internal Medicine Specialist Advisory Committee (GIM SAC) and Speciality Certificate Examination (SCE) Steering Group and also appointed as a school governor. Sophie Phipps, Legal Officer Sophie delivers legal advice to women on the Rights of Women family law advice line. She is a qualified solicitor, originally training and practising in the commercial sector. Before joining Rights of Women, Sophie worked for a domestic abuse charity providing advice and support to women survivors in a range of areas, including family and criminal justice. Immigration and Asylum Law Amy Grey, Legal Officer Amy delivers legal advice to women on the Rights of Women Immigration and Asylum law advice line and the EU Settlement Scheme advice line. Amy is a qualified solicitor specialising in immigration and asylum law. She has worked as a legal representative since 2001, advising and representing clients in various aspects of their immigration matters, including asylum and human rights’ claims and entry clearance applications. In addition to advice and casework, Amy has developed and provided training about various aspects of immigration law. Jasbindar Bhatoa, Senior Legal Officer Jasbindar joined Rights of Women in 2014 and manages and delivers our immigration and asylum law services. She is a qualified solicitor who has been working solely in the area of immigration law for the past 15 years. Jasbindar is also an experienced trainer and has developed and delivered training courses for legal and non-legal professionals focusing on legal issues affecting migrant women experiencing DV. Jasbindar previously worked at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants where she represented vulnerable individuals with complex cases. Jasbindar is an Accredited Supervisor under the Law Society Accreditation Scheme. Nicole Masri, Senior Legal Officer Nicole manages and delivers Rights of Women’s immigration services. She is a qualified solicitor specialising in immigration and asylum law with expertise in supporting women affected by domestic violence or abuse. In addition to advice and casework, Nicole is experienced in developing and delivering training around legal issues affecting migrant women to both non-legal and legal professionals. Nicole often leads on our wider influencing work by engaging with stakeholders seeking to bring about systemic change to protect migrant women and bring about a fair, safe and accessible immigration system. Saniya Hussain, Legal Officer Saniya joined Rights of Women in December 2022 and delivers legal advice to women on the Immigration and Asylum advice line. Saniya is a qualified Solicitor. She has worked as a legal representative since 2018 specialising in immigration and asylum casework, in particular initial asylum claims for adults and unaccompanied asylum seeking children, trafficking claims, fresh claims and appeal work. She is an Accredited Supervising Senior Caseworker under the Law Society Accreditation Scheme. Saniya’s working days at Rights of Women are Monday, Thursday and Friday. Sexual Harassment at Work Deeba Syed, Senior Legal Officer Deeba joined Rights of Women in 2019 to set up a brand-new employment law advice line for women experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace, funded by TIME’S UP UK the Justice and Equality Fund, managed by the Rosa, the UK Fund for Women and Girls. Deeba is a qualified solicitor, originally training in the financial sector and now specialising in employment law. She is an experienced equality and women’s rights campaigner and activist. She has previously worked in politics, communications and the charity sector. Volunteer legal advisers Our volunteer legal advisers are women solicitors and barristers practicing in our core areas of law: family, criminal and immigration and asylum. They are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority or Bar Standards Board and hold full practising certificates. They attend a compulsory advice line skills training course before beginning to advise on our advice lines. I volunteer at Rights of Women because I think that the recent legal aid cuts have disproportionately affected women and children and limit their access to justice. I believe that Rights of Women has an important role to play in the education and empowerment of women and that all women should be able to get legal advice on issues that affect them. I enjoy being part of an organisation that strives to help women and I enjoy knowing from the feedback that I receive that I have helped someone to feel better and more knowledgeable about their situation. I think others should volunteer because this is a service which is desperately needed and I think they will get a huge amount of satisfaction from volunteering. Lauren, family law solicitor and Volunteer Legal Adviser Find more information about volunteering with us here. Office volunteers Our office volunteers support our office administration and the delivery of our services for women. During their placements with us, they have the opportunity to get involved in a range of activities and provide invaluable support to our work. The one month volunteering I did with Rights of Women has been invaluable to me. It showed me a different side of the legal profession that I had never before explored. It also exposed me to a great range of legal situations, scenarios and areas of the law I had never considered. Working with Rights of Women actually helped me feel like something I was a part of was having a real and positive effect on someone else’s life. Aimee, law student and former office volunteer Find more information about volunteering with us here.