Thread by @spikemullings

What a show #LALY2020! @FionaBawdon @APPGLegalAid @ChrisLAPG @KateLAPG @BeckFitzgerald @MaryRachel_McC Nicola @macklawlondon @AnnaJonesSky @david_challen and everyone involved - that was magnificent! 1/12

So many remarkable stories of remarkable people doing remarkable work. That aspect of the LALYs is always so moving every year. 2/12

But as my new friend @SpikeNorman said later, this year many friends and family will have got to know why their mate or family member with the weird job - 'what is it they do again? Like a lawyer but no money, is that it?' - do what they do. 3/12

They'll have heard about the vulnerabilities, the pressures and the problems and the downright indignities our clients entrust us with, and what we try to do with that trust to ensure they get justice. 4/12

At a time when the enfranchisement of precarity is being widened by the pandemic, getting across the message of what #legalaidlawyers do on a daily basis, and the importance of full bandwidth #accesstojustice is more critical than ever 5/12

I am delighted to have won but I am humbled to hear about the brilliant work of Martin Bridger of @instalaw, Hazel Montgomery of Cartwright King, and @SpikeNorman of @ABLC1. 6/12

There have been such nice words. A wonderful deluge of messages from colleagues at @EdwardsDuthie @SteelShamash. Friends and family, including the preternaturally gracious @SpikeNorman, joined me and the family for a Zoom and ill-advised singalong. 7/12

pbs.twimg.com/media/EcWRhzfW…

I could not be happier for @JHASTARKBAR and @SiobhanTWard and @SWLLawCentres but, in some ways more importantly, I could not be prouder to work alongside all the finalist and indeed all my comrades in #legalaid 8/12

The importance of work was eloquently underlined by Mike McIlvany of @clpsolicitors in a brilliant segment wonderfully augmented by @zianabi, @JHASTARKBAR and most wonderfully of all, Terryann Samuels. 9/12

I have spoken publicly before about Mike being the Odysseus of #legalaid housing law, & the Samuels case, his Odyssey. He got a lifetime achievement award because the legal aid saga in Samuels was a lifetime's worth of striving to bring it home.
communitylawpartnership.co.uk/news/terryann-… 10/12

For myself I have so many people to thank. People wrote and said such lovely things and I am deeply moved - *actually shaken in a nice way!* - by people's kindness
I thank you all and look forward to telling you in person how moved and grateful I am . 11/12

But two people are beautifully threaded through the warp and weft of everything to do with the work I do in housing law and the work I do in campaigning for #legalaid and #accesstojustice and indeed most of my adult life.

Everything = @sue_james1 & @EmmersonDavid

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