Biographies listed in Programme running order - new ones will be added as they are received 

Anne Johnstone is the UKELA Chair and is a Partner at Malcolm Hollis LLP and has over sixteen years’ experience in environmental consultancy, previously at Ramboll Environ and Atkins. She is head of Malcolm Hollis’ Environmental practice in the UK, Ireland and Europe. She specialises in environmental due diligence, risk assessment and permitting.

Rt. Hon Lord Carnwath of Notting Hill C.V.O. is President of UKELA and has been a Justice of the UK Supreme Court since April 2012. He was a Lord Justice of Appeal since September 2001, having been a Judge of the High Court, Chancery Division, from 1994. He was Chairman of the Law Commission for England and Wales from February 1999 until July 2002. In July 2004 he was nominated as “Shadow” Senior President of Tribunals, to provide judicial leadership in the reform of the UK Tribunal system. In November 2007 he was appointed as the first statutory Senior President of Tribunals under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Internationally, in 2004 he was a founding member, and first Secretary-General, of the European Union Forum of Judges for the Environment (EUFJE). He has been joint chairman of the judicial advisory committee for the UNEP handbook on environmental law; and a member of the UNECE taskforce on the Aarhus Convention. 

Begonia Filgueira is co-Chair of UKELA's Brexit Task Force. She is a Legal Director and Head of Environment at Foot Anstey LLP.  She has over 20 years' experience in magic circle law firms in the City, Government and the United Nations. As an environmental, sustainability and climate law specialist she works with clients across the property, corporate/commercial, energy and construction groups. Begonia advises on environmental liabilities and risk including flooding, permitting, contaminated land, waste, water and enforcement.  She works with the boards of companies on risks and opportunities of climate policy and understanding its impact on  governance, ESG, Green Finance and business innovation to make business more resilient. She is  co-author of the Environment Volume of the Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents (LexisNexis) and a regular contributor to LexisNexis PSL.

Ruth Chambers is at the forefront of Greener UK’s work on the environment bill, and the campaign that led to the introduction of Section 16 of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill.  She has worked with a wide range of not-for-profit and public sector organisations, helping them to engage with and influence government and parliament. She has worked on a number of bills and campaigns including the Modern Slavery Bill, Housing and Planning Bill, Criminal Finances Bill, the Welfare Reform and Work Bill and the designation of the South Downs National Park. In addition to her Greener UK role, she is Chair of the Campaign for Better Transport, Senior Independent Trustee of the London Wildlife Trust and the lay member on COMEAP, the expert committee that advises the government on the effects of air pollutants on health. 

Professor Liz Fisher is Professor of Environmental Law, Faculty of Law and Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford. She is General Editor of the Journal of Environmental Law,  author of Environmental Law: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2017) and co-author of Fisher, Lange and Scotford, Environmental Law: Text, Cases and Materials (OUP) which is just about to appear in a 2nd edition. 

Debbie Tripley is the current Director of Environmental Policy and Advocacy at WWF-UK where she has worked for the past 4 years.   Her role includes leading WWF UK advocacy  to influence government to bring forth strong new environmental laws and policy. Debbie is a trained barrister and has provided legal advice on European and UK environmental law to the environmental sector for the last 20 years, both as in house lawyer to Greenpeace and as a barrister in private practice, bringing many successful legal cases. She has acted and advised on a wide range of environmental policy and legal topics, including taking public law cases and advising NGOs, recently advising WWF on the Welsh Future Generations and Wellbeing Act as well as conducting litigation to secure cleaner rivers.  She has previously acted as CEO to the Environmental Law Foundation.  She is currently leading WWF’s work on securing a Green Brexit as well as developing a work stream on children’s rights and the environment.

Professor Maria Lee is professor of law at University College London. She has been researching and teaching EU and UK environment law and governance for many years. She has been working on the environmental accountability and governance impacts of Brexit since 2016.

Professor Richard Macrory QC is a barrister and Emeritus Professor of Environmental Law at University College London.   He is a Patron of UKELA, and was former co-chair of the UKELA Brexit Task Force. 

Judge Alison McKenna was called to the Bar (M) in 1988 and was admitted as a Solicitor in 2003. She was appointed as a Fee-paid Legal Member of the Mental Health Review Tribunal in 2002 (becoming a Fee-paid Tribunal Judge of the First-tier Tribunal (Health Education and Social Care Chamber) in 2008. She was appointed to the Salaried post of President of the Charity Tribunal in 2008 and became the Principal Judge, First-tier Tribunal (Charity) in the General Regulatory Chamber in 2009, as a result of Tribunal reforms which also made her a transferred-in Judge of the Upper Tribunal.  She was assigned to the Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals) and (Tax and Chancery) Chambers in 2009.  She served as a Judicial Appointments Commissioner from 2012 to 2014, and was Chamber President of the First-tier Tribunal (War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Chamber) between 2014 and 2016, returning to the General Regulatory Chamber as its Principal Judge in 2016.  She was appointed as Chamber President of the General Regulatory Chamber in 2018.

Tim Buley specialises in all areas of public and regulatory law and planning and environmental law. In December 2013 he was ranked as one of Chambers UK’s Top Junior Bar 100, in its inaugural (and still only) listing of the top UK barristers. The Legal 500 2016 says that Tim is “probably the leading junior at the Administrative Law Bar”, and Chambers UK 2018 describes him as “one of the most accomplished junior counsel at the Bar”. Other comments from the current editions include “I don’t think there is a better junior at the Bar, he is an outstanding lawyer”, “at the cutting edge of EU rights”, and “masterful representation… in high profile judicial review challenges”. He was shortlisted for Human Rights and Public Law Junior of the Year at the Chambers UK Bar Awards 2017 and is the only junior currently listed in Band 1 in Admin law in both directories, with band 1 listings in five areas in both Chambers UK 2018 and the Legal 500 2017.

Angus Evers is a partner and head of the environmental law team at national law firm Shoosmiths LLP.  His practice covers all aspects of environmental law from waste to contaminated land, climate change, renewables, nuisance, water pollution and chemicals.  He also has expertise in related areas such as energy, planning and health & safety.  He advises on transactional, regulatory and contentious issues, regularly working alongside corporate, real estate, commercial, regulatory, projects and EU/competition teams.  He has led Shoosmiths’ environmental practice since 2016.  He was one of the Convenors of UKELA’s Waste Working Party from 2006 to 2018 and is currently one of the Co-Chairs of UKELA’s Brexit Task Force.

Professor Colin Reid is Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Dundee where he has worked since 1991.  He has taught and written on various environmental law and public law themes, and is currently working on an ESRC-funded project on the actual use and impact of the right of access to environmental information.  He spoke at one of the first events on Brexit and the Environment, in November 2015, and since then has continued to be active on the consequences of Brexit for environmental law.  This has included participation in research projects, the Brexit & Environment Network and the UKELA Brexit Task Force, as well as the Governance Sub-group of the Scottish Government’s Roundtable on Environment and Climate Change.  He has given written and oral evidence to several committees of both the Westminster and Holyrood Parliaments. He was a founding member of UKELA.  

Dr Viviane Gravey is a Lecturer in European Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. She is co-chair of Brexit & Environment, an academic network investigating how Brexit is affecting EU and UK environmental policy and governance. Her research focuses on how Brexit is changing UK environmental and agricultural policies with a focus on devolution and Northern Ireland. 

Lori Frater holds a degree in Business from Strathclyde University and a Law degree from King’s College, London. She holds a specialized master’s degree in environmental law (Sydney University) and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2000. She acts as a consultant advising policy makers for numerous government organizations at the International, Pan-Regional and national level (including UNEP, European Parliament, Welsh Government and DEFRA). She is an experienced company and project manager, she was the Executive Director of a charity and its commercial subsidiary, which she co-founded. She was a recipient of a Media Fellowship from the British Science Association in 2009. Specialties: Environmental law at the UK, European, Australasian and International levels, international environmental governance in international biodiversity conventions, sustainability in creative and cultural organisations, sustainable waste management and the regulation of new technologies.

David Baldock was the Executive Director of IEEP until July 2016 and is now a Senior Fellow. He has had a career in independent policy institutes, working closely with public institutions and NGOs as well as academics. He joined the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) in 1984 and became Director in 1998, establishing the Brussels office two years later. He has written about, and engaged in, many aspects of European environmental, agricultural, climate, food and related policies. Over the last three years the environmental consequences of Brexit, for the UK and for Europe as a whole, have become a prominent part of his agenda. He has led and contributed to  several projects on the environmental and agricultural dimensions of Brexit and its aftermath as well as participating in numerous events on this theme. He was specialist advisor to the 2017 House of Lords Committee enquiry on Brexit, the environment and climate and is an advisor to the Board of Greener UK.

Andrew Bryce trained and qualified as a solicitor with Cameron Markby (now part of CMS) and set up and led its Environmental Group. In 1994 he left to set up Andrew Bryce & Co. as a sole practice specialising in environmental and health and safety law.  The main focus of his practice was regulatory advice and criminal defence.  He has more than 40 years experience of advising a wide range of industries including the waste, oil and gas and nuclear sectors.  He is a former Chairman and Honorary Life Member of the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association and is currently on its Brexit Task Force as well as being a member of the Waste and Nature Conservation Working Parties.  He is a Non-Executive Director of Augean PLC.  He retired from private practice as a solicitor in September 2017 and now runs his consultancy ABESAC advising on a wide range of environmental issues.

Eloise Scotford is Professor of Environmental Law in the Faculty of Laws, University College London.  She joined UCL in 2017 from The Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London. Professor Scotford’s research covers many aspects of environmental law, with a particular focus on UK law, EU law, Australian law, and international law. She is a leading scholar on the legal treatment of environmental principles (notably as author of Environmental Principles and the Evolution of Environmental Law (Hart 2017)), air quality law, climate change governance, waste law, and legislative and adjudicative processes as they relate to the environment. Professor Scotford has been a Trustee of the Council of Management of the UK Environmental Law Association and currently sits on UKELA’s Brexit Taskforce. She has advised Defra, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Environment Agency on matters of environmental law. She is currently an Associate Member of Landmark Chambers, a member of the Avosetta group of EU environmental law experts, and Analysis Editor the Journal of Environmental Law. 

David Wolfe works as a public lawyer (QC) at Matrix. He is also Chair of the Recognition Panel established by the Royal Charter in the light of the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the news publishers.  Until April 2013, alongside his work as a barrister David was also a Commissioner (non-executive director) at the Legal Services Commission and a Board Member of the Legal Services Board.  Until July 2008, he was a part-time Chair of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal. David is an A-Panel member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Panel of Preferred Counsel.  David also trains lawyers and others, particularly in education and public law. He contributes regularly to general and specialist publications and radio broadcasts on legal issues.  David is an ADR Group Accredited Civil and Commercial Mediator.