We are delighted to announce that Gráinne Mellon is the winner of Advocate of the Year at the Women & Diversity in Law Awards 2025.
Our warmest congratulations to Gráinne for this outstanding achievement.
Press coverage in The Global Legal Post.
The Advocate of the Year Award recognises those who have made an exceptional contribution to the legal profession both through the quality of their legal work and their promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). We were also delighted that our Amanda Meusz was shortlisted in this category.
Gráinne Mellon is a public law specialist with expertise in human rights, civil liberties and equality law. She champions the rights of vulnerable members of society and is renowned for her ground-breaking human rights litigation in UK and international courts. She acts in discrimination cases and on behalf of children, vulnerable adults, refugees and trafficking victims.
Her practice includes education, community care, Court of Protection, immigration law, children’s rights and discrimination law and is recommended in the UK legal directories in seven areas (1) international human rights; (2) civil liberties and human rights; (3) administrative law; (4) community care; (5) education; (6) court of protection and (7) immigration. She is appointed to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s preferred Panel of Counsel (A Panel). In addition to her domestic practice, Gráinne acts and advises in international and European human rights law.
Gráinne was shortlisted as a finalist in the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards 2022 for Barrister of the Year and is the Vice-Chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee, the international human rights arm of the Bar Council, where she has served for over a decade. She formerly taught International Human Rights Law at the London School of Economics, where she was also a Fellow at the LSE’s Centre for Human Rights. Gráinne is appointed to sit as a Recorder in the South-Eastern Circuit as well as as a Judge of the Court of Protection and in the Mental Health Tribunal.
We are also delighted that Lawyers Who Care (LWC) was shortlisted for ‘Not-for-Profit Organisation or Representative Body of the Year’, and their Co-Founder and Co-Director, Lucy Barnes won ‘DE&I Champion of the Year – Barrister’. Congratulations to Lucy. Kate-Aubrey Johnson of Garden Court Chambers is Lucy Barnes’ fellow Co-Founder. Garden Court Chambers is a proud founding partner of Lawyers Who Care CIC. We were delighted to host LWC’s launch event in May 2024 and have held further trainings in collaboration with LWC, including a trauma informed training for family practitioners in September 2024. Many of our members are LWC mentors and we stand firmly behind LWC’s mission to remove the obstacles care-experienced people face to provide them with opportunity, support and guidance to pursue a career in law.
The Women & Diversity in Law Awards was hosted by journalist and broadcaster Maryam Moshiri on 18 March 2025. A full list of winners can be found here.
