Why “Sistren”?
“Sistren” means sister/friend in Jamaican Patois.
Our co-founders’ friendship emerged from their shared connections with Jamaica and so, when we started brainstorming ideas for how we could ‘lawyer differently’, we code-named our first ideas board ‘Project Sistren’.
For us, the word “Sistren” embodies the spirit of collaboration, community and family that created the bond through which Sistren Legal Collective was founded and that guides our work.
Our Work
We are not a law firm and we do not conduct any reserved legal activities. We build partnerships with community organisations and with leaders, activists, changemakers who’s work centres racial and social justice and we use our expertise to support their work. We also on occasion work with funders to support their grantees to set up and scale their work in this space.
As a small organisation, we focus our resources on supporting those who would not otherwise have access to legal support. We also support on strategic work where we’re able to have a wider impact – for example, where we’re able to help set precedent or develop our work with you for wider applicability such as by using it to build toolkits or produce model documents that can be used and replicated by others working in this space. We will do our best to signpost you to other resources if we can’t support your work due to our capacity constraints.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can work together, please contact us.
Our Team
SAMARA LAWRENCE (she/her)
CO-FOUNDER
Samara is the Co-Founder of Sistren Legal Collective. She is a non-profit lawyer with a passion for supporting organisations which advocate for social and racial justice. She is also Deputy General Counsel at Oxfam, supporting the organisation globally on its legal, campaigning and regulatory matters.
Samara has a BA in Politics from SOAS, University of London and following her conversion to law, she trained and qualified at magic circle law firm Linklaters LLP. Samara then followed her passion for the non-profit sector and worked at the leading charity law firm Bates Wells for four years, where she supported a wide range of non-profit organisations, including charities, social enterprises and community benefit societies.
She worked closely with Black Lives Matter UK, the Baobab Foundation, Mission 44 on their set up and legal structuring. Samara has worked across the non-profit sector from large NGOS such as Unicef, to helping set up a community organisation which made access to yoga and healthy eating accessible to Southwark residents typically excluded from community spaces.
KEYA ADVANI (she/her)
CO-FOUNDER
Keya is the Co-Founder of Sistren Legal Collective. She is also the Director of Programmes and Policy the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers, a community of legal leaders who are using their careers to have a positive impact on people and the planet, and to accelerate a just transition.
Keya has a BA in Comparative Literature from Hamilton College (USA), an LLB from the University of Cambridge (UK) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Rights Law from the National Law School (India). She was born and raised in India and started her career at the intersection of law, feminism and human rights. She came to the UK to study law and qualified as a lawyer at Linklaters LLP in London, before moving on to work as part of the Impact Economy practice at Bates Wells, where she advised charities, non-profits, social enterprises, businesses and impact investors on a variety of legal issues.
Keya has worked and seconded with a range of organisations, including in India, Jamaica, the United States and the UK. She’s worked on a range of issues, from violence against women to social housing, using a variety of legal strategies from legal advocacy to public interest litigation. She is committed to using the law as a tool to create positive change and is interested in collaborative, transnational ways to address global, systemic problems.
DANIEL AMPAW (he/him)
PROJECT MANAGER
Dan is a project manager with a passion for supporting vulnerable people and marginalised communities. As the Project Manager for Sistren he supports Keya and Samara with strategic planning, daily operations, communication, design and marketing.
He is also the Strategic Lead for Community Sport at London Sport, working to remove barriers and increase access to physical activity and sport for all Londoners.
Dan worked for 10 years in Local Government, working in Fostering, Adults with Learning Disabilities, Children with Complex Needs and Transformation Services. His last role in Local Government was working in the Grenfell Partnerships Team at RBKC, designing a service which directly supports bereaved and survivors from the Grenfell Tower Tragedy. Dan is a also an EDI Consultant and has delivered Anti-Racism coaching to organisations.
Sistren Consultants
MARIA TERRACCIANO (she/her)
CONSULTANT
Maria is a Consultant at Sistren Legal Collective. She is passionate about using the law to facilitate positive impact and systemic change for communities.
Maria has an LLB in Law with Politics from the University of Manchester and an LLM in International Law from University College London. She has worked as an Immigration paralegal at Bates Wells, Keystone Law and Fragomen. She also assisted the Public & Regulatory and Charity & Social Enterprise teams at Bates Wells where she worked with a variety of non-profit organisations.
Maria has a keen interest in migrant justice and spends her free time assisting the charities Revoke and Migrants Organise.
PARIDHI SINGH DIXON (she/her)
CONSULTANT
Paridhi is a Legal Consultant at Sistren Legal Collective. She is a Trustee for the UK National Alliance of Women’s Organisations where she contributes to the NGO Committee on the Status of Women based at the UN (Geneva, Switzerland) for uplifting women’s rights in the UK and around the world. Paridhi trained as a Solicitor at Baker McKenzie LLP and has a wider consulting skillset under her belt, having worked as a Management Consultant at Accenture, Scotland. Paridhi believes in using the law for good and in helping shape a future where lawyers bring more value to the communities they work with and within through innovative, collaborative and empowering ways of working.
Originally from India, Paridhi has lived and worked in several countries working in human rights, education and international development including with the United Nations Development Programme (Sri Lanka), the Centre for the Study of Democracy (Bulgaria), Journalists and Writers Foundation (Turkey) and as a research scholar at the University of Parma (Italy). She completed her integrated double bachelors in law from Jindal Global Law School (India) and holds three postgraduate law degrees, including a Master-in-law in International Law from the University of Cambridge.
Regulatory Statement
We are not a law firm and we do not conduct any reserved legal activities. We conduct non-reserved legal activities, including research, consultancy and where possible, the provision of some general legal advice. We don’t conduct any litigation, advise in contentious scenarios, work on legal transactions, or hold any client money.
Our solicitors hold current practicing certificates, however on occasion ‘non-practicing’ solicitors or people who don’t hold current practicing certificates may work as part of the collective from time to time. We will let you know where this is the case if it impacts our work with you.
We are not representatives of any law firm(s), though we may on occasion engage, consult or collaborate with law firms that provide particular areas of expertise, which they would provide under their usual terms of business. Where we undertake any non-reserved legal activities, where needed we will use our own business insurance to over the work.
We are not an SRA regulated organisation, however authorised persons working with Sistren Legal Collective are required to comply with the SRA Standards and Regulations. We are also guided by the SRA’s Guidance for the Not for Profit Sector.
We’re immensely grateful to Kingsley Napley for their in-kind support of our work and their assistance with clarifying our regulatory position