Jane Waddell

Head of Curriculum Design and Development

Jane Waddell is Head of Curriculum Design and Development and a member of the Senior Executive. Jane has responsibility for the leadership and strategic development of the curriculum across the College. Prior to joining the College, Jane was an Assistant Head of Department and programme Leader for Professional Law at the University of West of England for 11 years. She was a partner at TLT and Eversheds Solicitors between 1998 and 2007. Jane heads the fantastic team of Programme leaders, module leaders and supervisors.

Kathryn Dutton

Module Leader

Kathryn Dutton is module leader for the GDL. She has over 20 years of experience supporting Law students in a range of different settings and contexts: from foundation studies to doctoral degrees, in the U.K. and overseas. Kathryn was part of the team that established the Law School at the University of Chester. She served as Head of Law at the University of Bradford and was founding Head of the Law School at York St John University, later becoming Associate Dean of Law and Policing. Most recently, she has taught law students at Birmingham City University and worked for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (Q.A.A.), as a specialist supporting U.K. Higher Education institutions with enhancement and standards.

Lisa Morrison

Module Leader

Lisa Morrison is the Module Leader for the Solicitors Legal Skills module (SQE2 Preparation) and a supervisor for the land and property practice modules.

Before joining the College, Lisa spent over 25 years working as a solicitor, qualifying in 1997 and beginning her legal career practising commercial property law in a regional firm in East Anglia before taking up opportunities with top tier firms in Birmingham. She then moved to HM Land Registry working as an in house solicitor for 15 years. In 2018 Lisa made the move back to private practice and was a partner in a large multi office regional firm in the West Midlands before moving into legal education.

Lisa specialises in property law and has significant experience in all aspects of property transactions including freehold and leasehold commercial property sales and purchases, commercial leases and the requirements of lenders in property transactions. Her time at Land Registry also gave her an insight into the complexities of land registration.

Steve Johnson

Module Leader

Steve Johnson an SQE1 module leader at the College and has twenty-five years of practice and has practiced as a barrister in the civil and criminal jurisdiction. In the latter part of his career at the Bar he was a leading junior with an extensive criminal law career at the highest spectrum of the criminal calendar. He was a category 4 prosecutor. His criminal experience was in both defence and prosecution, including many cases of murder and attempted murder. Steve was part of a specialist and highly sensitive rape panel team which provided advice pre-trial and prosecuted in cases of serious sexual violence.

Steve has been an accredited advocacy trainer for the Northern Circuit since the mid 1990’s and was involved, at its infancy, in the development of the training method for the Northern Circuit’s Compulsory Continuing Education Programme, targeted at practicing advocates.

Steve has been teaching and training prospective lawyers for 30 years. For the last 5 years he has been a training course designer and tutor for the Inns of Court College of Advocacy where he designed their Part 1 Criminal Procedure, Evidence and Witness Handling courses. Prior to that he spent ten years at Manchester Metropolitan University as Head of Advocacy on the Bar Professional Training Course. He is a subject matter expert in criminal procedure and evidence, advocacy training skills and client interviewing. During his time at MMU he led a team to the finals of the International Client Interviewing Competition.

Steve is both an external advocacy assessor to the CPS and a Higher Court Rights assessor for the SRA. He has designed and delivered a witness training course of trainee fast track detectives for the Metropolitan Police.

Nabeala Fiaz

Module Leader

Nabeala Fiaz is a professional Consultant Solicitor, she is a thirteen-year qualified solicitor with diverse experience in meticulously handling legal affairs pertaining to Dispute Resolution, Personal Injury, and Financial mis-selling. In addition, she has core competencies in teaching law at degree and postgraduate level whilst promoting a learning environment that fosters academic excellence. Nabeala is a Module Leader for the full-time transactional skills modules on the LLM in Legal Practice and supervises across modules. She also acts as a subject matter expert when conducting Dispute Resolution practice and feedback sessions in Advocacy, Legal Research, Drafting and Case Matter Analysis. 

Anita Shepherd

Supervisor

Anita Shepherd qualified as a Solicitor in 1999 and currently practices as a Consultant Solicitor. She has 24 years' experience in Family Law handling a broad range of complex family matters including complex high net worth financial settlements, private law child arrangements and domestic abuse cases. Anita is an advanced member of Resolution having acquired advanced accredited specialist status in Domestic Abuse and Advanced Financial Provision.

Anita is a trained Collaborative Lawyer who is committed to encouraging clients to communicate effectively to achieve healthy and family focused outcomes. As well as being a Tutor/Supervisor at the College, she also mentors and supervises undergraduate law students at the Legal Advice Centre at University of Manchester and MMU and as such is committed and passionate about developing the next generation of Solicitors as well as promoting access to justice for the general public.

Carol Manduca

Supervisor

Carol Manduca has been a qualified solicitor for over 30 years, specialising in Corporate and Finance Law. Before moving into legal education she has been a City law firm partner and Managing Director of a global financial services company.

Christine Taylor

Supervisor

Christine Taylor obtained her law degree from London Guildhall University and took up a teaching post in the following year, specialising in the Law of Torts, Contract Law and Employment Law. She then studied, part time, for a LLM in Labour and Management Relations at the London School of Economics. Further to that, she undertook the Legal Practice Course. She then took up a post at BPP Law School and became the Course Director for the GDL. She later became a Board Director of the Law School with chief responsibility for Human Relations and Marketing. Subsequently, she took up a post at ULaw and headed up the Learning and Pastoral Care unit, reporting to the Executive Committee. She has taught her specialist subjects throughout encompassing the LLB, GDL and LPC courses. 

Eamonn McNamara

Supervisor

Eamonn McNamara trained with Macfarlanes in the early 1990’s, and worked as a corporate solicitor with two other corporate law firms including Dechert LLP, where he was a senior solicitor and corporate Professional Support Lawyer till 2008. 

He has worked for several universities as a company law lecturer, and was a senior lecturer at BPP Holborn Law School from 2010 to 2022. At BPP he specialised in delivering corporate electives at postgraduate level, including the LPC. He was also in charge of LPC Programmes for full-time and part-time LPC students at BPP Cambridge Law School from 2011 to 2015. Currently, he is a lecturer at City Law School, London University, where he is head of the Mergers & Acquisitions and Business Law modules. 

Elina Konstantinidou

Supervisor

Elina received her PhD in law from Surrey University in 2014. She has been teaching law since 2008 at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across various universities in the UK. Her main teaching areas are English Legal System, Constitutional and Administrative law, and Criminal Law and Practice. She also supervises undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations and PhD research. Elina has also been a Course leader for Law at Anglia Ruskin University. She has contributed to development of various professional, undergraduate, and post graduate courses in law and social sciences. She has also acted as a personal tutor to students from different backgrounds.

Jane Matthews

Supervisor

Jane Matthews has been qualified as a solicitor for over 20 years and practiced in corporate/commercial areas of law including pensions and tax. She has also significant experience in Higher Education, predominantly at a postgraduate level, developing and leading popular and successful units across a variety of programmes including the Legal Practice Course. Units developed and led include business law, corporate governance, employment law and skills subjects such as drafting and practical research.

Lorraine Richardson

Supervisor

Lorraine Richardson is a Supervisor and Subject Matter Expert who has produced legal training and CPD webinars for many clients including Legalease, BARBRI, the Law Society, MBL and Central Law Training. Lorraine qualified as a solicitor in 1991 and specialised in “high end” conveyancing, residential tenancy agreements, remortgages, leasehold and development work. She has continued to practice residential conveyancing through locum work whilst developing legal training.

Rhiannon Davies

Supervisor

Rhiannon studied her undergraduate in LLB Law and German at Cardiff University (and for one year in Trier, Germany) until 2004 and completed her LPC in Manchester in 2005. Rhiannon qualified as a Solicitor in 2008 whilst doing her training contract at a large multi office firm in the Midlands. Rhiannon has worked Employment Law since qualification and moved to work in London in 2011 and subsequently in Dubai in 2015, where her employment practice continued under both the UK jurisdiction and the UAE Labour Law. Returning to the UK in 2018, Rhiannon worked in Manchester continuing to act on behalf of both employees and employers and regularly dealing with a mix of contentious and non-contentious work as well as Tribunal claims. Rhiannon currently works in-house as an adviser to the education sector on all aspects of Employment Law.

Ruaidhri Fitzsimons

Supervisor

I have practiced as a criminal defence lawyer for over 20 years during which time I have built up successful practices both in Cornwall and the North West of England. I have extensive experience representing suspects at the police station and subsequently when charged before the Youth and the Magistrates' Courts. I have dealt with the full gamut of criminal offences, everything from drink driving to murder, drug importation to rape, and violent disorder to offences of dishonesty. I have extensive experience of advocacy before the Youth and Magistrates' Courts, particularly in the conduct of trials. In 2022 I joined Manchester Metropolitan University as a senior lecturer teaching criminal and advanced criminal litigation on the Legal Practice Course, as well as evidence and other crime-related subjects on the degree course. I am passionate about justice, and the maintenance of civil, legal, and human rights. I see the maintenance of an effective criminal justice system as a cornerstone of our democracy. 

Saima Haroon

Supervisor

Saima Haroon is an 12-year qualified Solicitor with 16 years of experience in the areas of Litigation, Dispute Resolution, Industrial Disease, Personal Injury and Financial Mis-selling. In addition, Saima has extensive experience in Management, Training, Audit and Compliance. As a Partner and member of the Senior Management in her current and previous roles, Saima has had direct responsibility for the training and development of Trainee Solicitors, Law Graduates and Junior Fee Earners. Saima is Supervisor on the SQE Course alongside working as a Practising Solicitor and Head of Litigation.

Sajida Ismail

Supervisor

Sajida Ismail worked for many years as an Immigration Solicitor in a not-for-profit Law Centre, advising, assisting and representing clients from many parts of the world on a broad range of immigration matters, in particular, issues which engaged the law on family reunion, asylum and human rights. She conducted trans-national research in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University on a 3-year funded project examining the evidential difficulties faced by Pakistani women arriving in the UK to seek asylum, having fled domestic violence in Pakistan. Sajida left practice to move into legal education and has several years of experience in that sector. Sajida is a keen walker and coordinates a migrant women’s walking group which, through the practice of walking, enables a discussion on immigration law, specifically, what “legal status and borders” mean in a contemporary context. 

Sarah Taylor

Apprentice Coach

Sarah Taylor is an Apprentice Coach on our Graduate Solicitor Apprenticeship Programmes. Sarah was previously the College's Programme Leader for the SQE2 Preparation Course and the Graduate Diploma in Law programme between 2022 and 2024. Before joining the College, she was Course Leader and Deputy Programme Leader at Manchester Law School for 10 years. Prior to this, Sarah worked as an in-house solicitor with the Co-op Insurance Society and as a solicitor with Eversheds.

Simona Hamblet

Supervisor

Simona Hamblet practiced employment law for twenty years and was a partner in a dual-office law firm. She has experience teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate degree level, covering a range of legal subjects, legal skills, and related business skills. Simona is now a non-practicing solicitor, who alongside teaching and lecturing, coaches law firm owners and partners. She supervises on both the SLK and SLS courses at the College.