Online Webinar | Second Supplementary Report of the Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation

Professor Stephen Mayson was originally called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn (of which he is now a Bencher and chairman of its Regulatory Panel). 

After a period as a tax lawyer with a Magic Circle law firm, he developed an international reputation as a strategic advisor in the legal sector, working on a range of strategic, financial, ownership and governance issues with law firms and corporate and government legal departments.  More recently, he has held a number of non-executive directorships and retained strategic advisory relationships with law firms and law-related businesses, and is currently non-executive chairman of an ABS law firm. 

Since 1992, Stephen has also held professorships in the UK and abroad, and is presently Honorary Professor of Law at University College London, attached to the Centres for Ethics & Law and Access to Justice.  He has a particular interest in the regulation of legal services, and conducted an independent review of the regulatory framework in England & Wales from 2018, submitting his main report to the Lord Chancellor in June 2020 (followed in 2022 and 2024 by supplementary reports on consumer harm and the public interest).  He was subsequently appointed by the Lord Chancellor to the expert panel supporting Sir Christopher Bellamy’s review of criminal legal aid, and has recently served on the taskforce established by the Institute of Business Ethics to examine business ethics and the legal profession.

Sam Eastwood represents corporations, boards of directors, board committees, executives and public officials in criminal, civil and regulatory enforcement proceedings around the world. Sam advises corporates and financial institutions on anti-corruption, economic sanctions, anti-money laundering and human rights in the context of investigations, complex transactions and compliance programme development and testing. He also advises corporates across a range of sectors, in particular aerospace and defence, chemicals, financial institutions, oil and gas, telecommunications, mining, shipping, transportation, engineering and heavy machinery, and FMCG.

Sam was part of the UK project team that developed the International Standards Institute (ISO) standard for anti-corruption management programmes and previously sat on the British Standards Institute’s panel for the drafting of the Anti-Bribery Standard and conducted subsequent pilot reviews of this Standard. Sam is recognised as a Band 1 practitioner in Chambers UK Financial Crime: Corporate and a leading individual in Legal 500 UK - Corporate Crime (including fraud, bribery and corruption). Sam is a qualified Solicitor Advocate and accredited mediator.

Sam is a member of the UCL Centre for Ethics and Law Advisory Panel, a board member of Spotlight on Corruption and a member of the Steering Committee of the Institute of Business Ethics Taskforce on Business Ethics and the Legal Profession.

Dr. Karen Nokes joined UCL Faculty of Laws as a Lecturer in 2021. She holds a PhD in Business and Management from the University of Manchester, an LLB from the University of Cardiff and a BSc in psychology from the Open University.

Karen was admitted as Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England & Wales in 1992. Prior to joining UCL, Karen was a Research Fellow in the Centre for Crime, Justice, and Policing at the University of Birmingham. Prior to postgraduate study, Karen was a solicitor in private practice after which she spent nearly 20 years working for the Law Society/Solicitors Regulation Authority where she held a number of senior posts, including Head of Practice Standards and Director of Supervision. She has extensive experience of legal regulation and of practitioner engagement.

Karen received a scholarship from the Economic and Social Research Council for her doctoral studies and has presented at a number of national and international conferences including the Academy of Management Annual Meeting (2015, 2016 and 2018), British Academy of Management Annual Conference (2017), the Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference (2022) and the International Legal Ethics Conference in Amsterdam (2024).

Karen is currently a grant holder (Co-I) from the ESRC for the project 'Professional Pathologies, Causal Pathways and the Post Office Miscarriages of Justice (PI- Professor Richard Moorhead -Exeter).

Anna Donovan is an Associate Professor of corporate law at UCL Faculty of Laws and is the Director of the UCL Centre for Ethics and Law.  

Anna’s work sits at the intersection of corporate law and behaviour, exploring how institutional rules shape human behaviour across legal fields including corruption, ethics and technology.  Her recent monograph, Reconceptualising Corporate Compliance, was joint runner up for the Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship and she co-edits Pettet, Lowry and Reisberg’s Company Law. Anna was previously the Vice Dean (Innovation) at the Faculty of Laws. She is a member of the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies and a former panel member of LawtechUK.

Prior to academia Anna was a corporate solicitor in the City and she is also admitted as an attorney in New York.

UCL's Centre for Ethics and Law promotes and enhances collaboration between corporates, practitioners, civil servants, academics and others around the broad themes of professional ethics and the ethics of risk. Subscribe to receive updates on the centre and similar events.

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