Chairman: David Merkel
David qualified in 1976 and has worked in Local Government and Education. He has been involved in the group since its inception in 1989.
David's agenda as chairman this coming year includes:
- raising the profile of the division
- increasing the number of members by 20% to 600 lawyers, trainees and students
- continuing to our careers and training conferences programme
- feeding into to the Law Society and other government initiatives on disability
- developing further our mentoring and outreach programme
Vice Chair: Kate Hincks
Kate has been teaching law for many years and also teaches art and crafts to people with a multitude of disabilities. For this term with the LDD Kate is taking part in road-shows aimed at getting the support message through to students, and also doing talks at a variety of institutions on how she got into this field.
Deputy Vice Chair: Waqas Zaib
Has been a member of the division since 2008 and has been trying to get the division more up to date through the use of technology and expand LDD reach. Waqas’s goals as his first year as DVC are:
- to update the LDD website each quarter with relevant information
- expand to LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube by 2013
- add more events suited to law students and
- try and get a disabled solicitors or trainees insight into working in the City.
Honorary Secretary: Jane Burton
A member of LDD since 2005 whilst studying the GDL and LPC at the College of Law in York as a mature student, Jane has been a member of the LDD Executive Committee since 2008 and Honorary Secretary since 2009.
Jane set up and ran the LDD Facebook page, which has given us an important presence in the social network environment and has helped raise our membership numbers.
Jane is the LDD representative on the Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) National Committee and she feels it is very important to keep up a high profile for the LDD and to make our voice heard especially during these difficult economic times.