Stephanie Harrison KC of Garden Court is featured in the January 2026 issue of Counsel Magazine.
In the Counsel Magazine article, Stephanie Harrison KC reflects on 35 years as a legal aid practitioner and some of the very real dangers of not learning lessons from the past.
“I have been a member of Garden Court Chambers since 1997. I have been fortunate enough to benefit from a workplace set up to ‘Do Right and Fear No One’. Day in and day out, we aim to provide high quality legal services to those who need it most but have the least means to achieve it.”
“As a woman from a Northern working-class family, there would have been little prospect of a successful career at the Bar without legal aid practice and chambers that are committed to changing and opening up the legal profession to disadvantaged groups.”
In 2025, Stephanie was recognised with the ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ at the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year (LALYs) Awards:
“The work I was commended for is not so much a reflection of my achievements but a damning indictment of government policy and practice that necessitated the legal challenges in the first place. A long-standing feature of my work has been the unlawful detention and mistreatment of children and vulnerable adults in the immigration system.
Awards focus on individuals, but nobody who does this job well does it alone.”
Stephanie, leading Gordon Lee, Kirsten Heaven, Una Morris, Alex Schymyck and Louise Hooper represented former detainees, whistle-blower and Medical Justice, instructed by Duncan Lewis and Bhatt Murphy in the Brook House Inquiry.
“It was vital to ensure that the damning findings of the Brook House Statutory Inquiry (BHI) and its 33 recommendations were not made in vain.
The hope was to break what the Chair of the BHI called ‘the dark thread’ of failures to learn lessons and to end intransigence in the face of systematic illegality and a culture of impunity that pervades the Home Office.”
On inspiring the next generation, Stephanie added:
“It is precisely in these times that we must reinforce the institutions and constitutional arrangements that strengthen democracy and fundamental rights, particularly those of racialised minorities and the marginalised.
These are the lessons that must not be lost on current generations of lawyers and politicians.”
Read the full article here.
