Daniel Holt (‘DH’): Hi everyone, welcome to latest edition of Disabled Lawyer and Proud, our recent campaign to make disabled lawyers visible and put a spotlight on many different ways you can enjoy a legal career as disabled person. We hope
this campaign will encourage and make more disabled students want a career in law.

Today, we have Fiona Hewitt is Senior Associate and Head of Employment and Commercial Disputes at Neves Solicitors. I am glad I got the name
pronunciation right! Fiona qualified in 2002 and has enjoyed a varied career at small firms, large firms and for herself. At this moment in time and throughout her career, Fiona and her teams have featured in the Legal 500. She is currently the latest edition with her Commercial team. Fiona is a keen mediator and highlights the importance of avoiding litigation where possible. Fiona is a proud Committee Member of the Law Society’s Lawyers with Disabilities Division and Honorary Solicitor for racing department of the Invictus Games.

Have I got that right, Fiona?

Fiona Hewitt (‘FH’): Yeah that's that's right Daniel. so um I, I became involved with uh with with Team Endeavour which is um a a a charity which was a an offshoot
really from the Invictus Games which um which Prince Harry, i think we still call him that, were set up. So I'm very proud to be their honorary solicitor um not least because as I’m sure you'll know the whole premise behind Invictus is for injured service people to participate in sports and team endeavour is high-speed powerboat racing um which I, I went out once um and I can I can see the attraction. I won't be doing it again um but it's it's a fabulous opportunity for people who have been injured and who have then therefore required disabilities to be able to get out onto the water um with the thrill and the adrenaline that comes with that. It's it's a fabulous charity yeah.

DH: Are you otherwise interested in sport?

FH: I’m not a very sporty person I must admit um I used to ride horses um when I was young um and I had the odd stint on the hockey pitch but that was um watching rugby is my contribution to the sporting world.

DH: Fantastic. Today, I have some questions for you about you and your career. I am really looking forward to it and hearing about you.

FH: Thank you. I am delighted to join you, Daniel. it's it's it's great and i'm really looking forward to our chat.

DH: The first question is, "What does being disabled mean to you?"

FH: Excellent, at very thought-provoking question. If I may say so um so growing up I probably didn't consider myself to be disabled um and actually it was my training as a lawyer, a solicitor now, that made me think do you know what I kind of I, I have a disability um it's as I’ve got older and other life events have happened I have more than one disability now like many of us. Um so it's been a very gradual and long, I’m in my mid-40s now, a long learning process for me I suppose to to um to come I suppose come to terms with but to realise that actually no I there's I, I, do have I do have a disability and I, I feel that that has contributed to who I am as a person of course made me who I am maybe who I am as a lawyer as well so what does it mean to me it means a lot actually um I’m not a fan of labels but actually sometimes that can be really helpful um in terms of um fellowship and support with other people to say yeah I’ve, I have a disability and so does this person and so does this person um and the beauty of it is that we are all celebrated in our differences as well as our similarities.

DH: That nicely leads to my next question, which I can already see where your answer will go, but "How do you feel about disability pride?"

FH: Yeah that was that was totally unprompted as well but um yeah I think what what's really exciting now is we are there is much more visibility of the disabled movement and the fellowship that we have and that actually, you know, it's not something to be ashamed of it's something to be proud of it enhances who we are as people, it enhances who we are as lawyers, I strongly believe, and it enhances
the you know the workplace that the world at large to have this fabulous variety of
people who, due to their disabilities, have even more to offer.

I couldn't agree more. At the Association of Disabled Lawyers, we are passionate about removing barriers around law and making sure everybody has an equal opportunity to enjoy a good career in law but, for purposes of visibility and encouraging people to pursue a career, please could you tell us what your
impairment is?

Yes so my original um disability was disfigurement. Um so I have a vascular condition you can't see it because I’ve got all my slap on today but um um I, I originally had had a vascular condition which I was born with um resulting in a large port wine stain on my face um lots of I think you know the misconception is that
oh it's just a birthmark everybody has birth marks but of course when it's, it's immediately visible um on the the centre portion of your face. It's um you know has has caused psychological issues of course, but also um you know physical issues such as cobbling and you know things going up into my eye and making my eyesore and and bleeding and so on so I've actually had since I was 14, I've had 36 treatments operations on my face. At one point in time that was every six weeks um so balancing that with training was was quite um yeah a balancing act, let's say um. And subsequent to that um as I say there was psychological issues
um arising out of that and then, in 2012 following the birth of my daughter, and subsequent very serious illness, I developed PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Um, I guess that's why I get on with the veterans so well because there are lots of similarities there and subsequent to that um that can as I’m sure lots of people know can manifest in lots of different ways including physical symptoms um and now I've got an autoimmune disorder due to Long Covid just to you know add to the list.

DH: Throughout your career, you've obviously demonstrated a level of resiliency to be able to manage your impairments and have a successful career in law. You are now Head of Employment and Commercial Disputes at Neves and a keen meditator.
What does your job involve on a day to day basis?

FH: Lots of talking, good job I like talking isn't it? Um lots of talking so I enjoy a really mixed practice and so I as you've highlighted Daniel, thank you, I do employment and commercial disputes so um no such thing as a typical day in dispute resolution because you just never know what's going to come across your desk. Um so what what my day-to-day sort of role involves is um you know helping people
to to resolve disputes i I guess. All of all sorts of nature and um the the thing with
litigation or dispute resolution is i always say it's it's a crisis purchase. Nobody really
wants to instruct me so because they're not really going to get anything nice out of it
win or lose it's always usually going to be not a win or lose but a compromise that both parties can live with and that's the beauty of mediation and why I’m so keen to mediate because even if you go to court or a party goes to court and wins, it's not really usually a win, um because they won't recover all of their costs and and so on. So I, I like to call it a crisis purchase. People come to me because they've got a problem and as I say they don't really want to instruct me but the the beauty of of my work and what I still after 22 years find really interesting is, you know, helping people to resolve these issues um to get to the bottom of what the issues are and to find the best pathway forward um so on the so that's the dispute side so I could be doing anything from an injunction for trespass, to a property for instance, to um contractual disputes, shareholder disputes, intellectual property, and then on the employment side um I deal with both employees and employers and the fabulous thing about that is I get to work with employers, not only to change or to sorry to deal with a problem in that instant, but to help them to improve their own practices um and then shoehorn the disability rights into that as well which gives me quite a lot of satisfaction.

It seems a lot of your job is about managing expectations and working a way forward. We know that there remains a significant amount of obstacles and barriers in law and it's important to manage the expectations of what it will be like when you join these professions.

DH: Could you tell us about the obstacles you have overcome in your career?

FH: Yes, I, I can Daniel, thank you, and, and I apologise if I get a bit emotional about this. Um but actually no I don't because, you know, what that's that's that's fine. This is what I tell my daughters it's fine it's fine to show your emotions.

 I'm I had a a a tricky start to to be honest with with my career I can still remember well, in fact, the day I went for my admission to the role ceremony the then President of the Law Society whose name I went mentioned um I went up on stage and the first thing he said to me even before congratulations was what on earth have you done to your face someone hit you have you been in a fight and I thought "wow really really". Again, trying to keep, you know, a brave face walking off the stage without sort of bursting into tears or or retaliating, I suppose, um it did all get sorted out and I’m delighted to say that the person in question saw the error of their ways and very kindly engaged with the amazing charity, Changing Faces, um for whom I'm an Ambassador, oh I wasn't then but I am now. And um so you know there was there was a there was a big learning goal for the for the Law Society then um and that was achieved so something good came out of it. 

But you know, during my training contract even before that um you know when I, I when I applied to university to study law I, I was um I was successful in that and I, I had a place at UCL which is where I really wanted to go I had an unconditional offer to go there but unfortunately, at that time, my disabilities couldn't be accommodated because I needed it to stay in a room a single room with access to you know private facilities due to my disability. And unfortunately, that couldn't be guaranteed and so I made the very difficult decision not to go um but to stay at home and then somebody said to me well why don't you go to Buckingham University because that's where I'm from and so I could live at home and still go there at the time this is a long time ago um in the 90s before tuition fees came in it was the only private university in the country but I was successful in applying for a scholarship to go there and again had if I were to have my time again I'd do exactly the same because it's an amazing place um which um was very happy to make accommodations for me not least because it is a university that enjoys wide intersectionality of people with disabilities more mature students and people from overseas and from various different sort of religious beliefs and and so on. So, it was a wonderful melting pot um and I, I wasn't the only person with disabilities there either um so that so that was the start. So having overcome all that I then got my training contract um and had yeah i think it's fair to say a a bit of a um in at the deep end approach. But again I, I feel that that's that's paid off but even then um that was in the day with that um solicitors had only just started to be able to advertise which seems weird now um but I was as a trainee going off around the country and taking witness statements and going to trials and things and I regularly had you know comments on my disability my disagreement um which you know I still remember today, of course I do. Um and then I went to work for a small practice that was that was fine again huge um huge learning curve for me going to networking events which, although I'm a very sociable person, that was extremely daunting being young having a disability and being in a relatively senior position at a young age um and being responsible for the business development of the firm in that way. And I remember just you know finding that very, very difficult um in those situations but again I, I learned from it. I realised very quickly actually that the um the experiences that I'd had contributed to my success rather than took away from it. And so it's so it's gone on um I'm as you rightly, thank you helpfully pointed out Daniel, I am now able to use my experience and legal sort of background to help other charities um to to assist with with them um and now I'm in a position that I coach other members of of my team to help them to reach their potential as well so um yeah that's here here I am sort of 22 years later.

DH: It's a shame you experienced the difficulties you have during parts of your career but, what I like about your answer is, you demonstrate how you can use that experience not only to your benefit but for the benefit of others. If you haven't mentioned it already, what has the best experience of your career been?

FH: I mean, wow, that's a really good one. I need to think about that. I suppose most people, I don't know, many people, I suppose would say you know making partnership or or doing this or doing that. I think the best part of my career is probably now because I'm in a place that is supportive um of my sort of little foibles,
I suppose um, and you know gives me the opportunity to do my charity work and and what have you. Um in terms of I suppose maybe a defining moment it was possibly a few years ago now in the Oxford County Court um in front of the circuit judge there um Her Honour Melissa Clark QC and we I, without sort of divulging too much that i can't divulge, um I have been subject to um quite a long campaign by a litigant in person who was directing a lot of vitriol against me personally. Um and it was it was very, very difficult, very difficult, because you know, as a litigator, usually you're dealing with other firms of solicitors so you don't you don't really get that but this person was emailing me multiple times a day being personally very insulting I was personally insulting at court and the the judge completely agreed with my perspective and was extremely kind in terms of acknowledging the effect that that had had on me. So and i think it would have had a huge effect on someone anyway whether or not they had you know PTSD or or anything else indeed. Um and that was sort of a validation which which I found very helpful so bit of a weird top one, but that i think is it because it was the realisation that, you know what, the judiciary are getting it. um I also think it shows how far a little
bit of kindness can go.

DH: In most legal professions, it's very intense, it's really to the point and I think that little bit of kindness went a long way for you. 

FH: I totally agree, Daniel. I mean, I, I sometimes joke with people that I argue for a living um but and that is the truth and actually, you know, I think that can in itself that can take its toll on anybody but particularly where you have a sort of a pre-existing condition that perhaps predisposes you to, to finding that quite difficult to deal with so you're absolutely right the kindness and the acknowledgement that you know what that's not okay to be to do that and really sorry you know you had to go through that is is is hugely impacting.

DH: You're absolutely right. I, I also think it's a good example maybe good practice for the Judiciary because we often hear about how judges can be a bit impatient and a bit rude with junior practitioners. Not to say you were junior, but that seems to be something that comes out into the community and also that lack of willingness to change or accommodate and that example seems to be a good one for not only being kind but also taking into account people's wider circumstances. That can only benefit um all legal profession regardless of what job
in the profession you have. 

FH: Absolutely, absolutely. I, I think it's you know it's the old adage
of just you treating somebody with how you would want to be treated yourself.

DH: When this interview goes out, it will be Disability Pride Month and it's a big month for disabled people because it's our month where we can talk about who we are and be proud of who we are and I am looking forward to it, but
not everything is rosy for disabled people. It never has been. It certainly isn't now. What do you think about the current issues faced by disabled people? I mean, I know there are many issues but what's the one issue you feel most passionate about?

FH: Okay yeah so, I think as you say not not everything's rosy and and there's still a huge amount of of work to be done. um I think the main thing is that, sadly in terms of what we lawyers would call protected characteristics, um disability tends to be the poor relation, it comes right at the bottom of the list when when people consider it. The, the the most pressing thing, I think, is that for years disabled people have been of course asking for reasonable adjustments which many firms have been I think totally daunted by oh it's going to be really difficult to do that or too expensive or too disruptive or whatever and I think the what the pandemic has shown is that actually some of those reasonable adjustments for example working from home for some days in the week or whatever are not only easily achievable, but have been achieved for the past two and a half years or so two years, just over two years, with with great results. So I think in terms of um the the priorities and the pressing needs of people with disabilities is is that um there is a big trend I'm seeing in employment law at the moment to say okay well business as usual everybody back to the office please and I think we as disabled people have to be very strong to speak up and say no this you know this has worked these are the figures these are the ways in which it has worked um in order to maintain what would have been reasonable adjustments.

DH: My next question would have been, "what is
a solution?" but it seems that the answer will be for law firms and other employers
to carry on making the adjustments they made during lockdown. And to keep listening, and to keep you know proactively asking people for feedback and you know what can they do to to retain talent.

FH: Absolutely.

DH: and many firms and employers are demonstrating they can make adjustments to the workplace when we need to like they did in lockdown. I think it's important that we all ask for me to be open in the future and make adjustments not only disabled people for the entire workforce. 

FH: Yeah and I think you know that feeds in as well that for some disabilities that aren't perhaps immediately visible, there's always been this huge question hasn't there of disclosure and you know do we tell if if there's something that's not immediately visible or indeed an employer may not realise that something amounts
to a disability, you know, what, what do we do about that? And I think you know one of the most pressing things in the solutions is to support people with disabilities in making that decision of of disclosure on and basically on onboarding people that you know that's, that's absolutely fine and presenting a solution that this is what can be done um.

DH: Yeah, absolutely. My next question is probably the most difficult question of them all. So I am preparing you in advance! What do you think the future holds for disabled people? You can put boundaries on that as you wish, but what do you think the future holds for disabled people?

FH: Lawyers in particular um I would like to think it's bright um as I mentioned there has been huge progress not probably not still not enough progress but I think it's looking at the future for disabled people in the legal profession now in June 2022 is a lot brighter than I would have thought when I looked back in June 2002 for example. um And I think the the progress that's been made let's say between 2002 and now has been huge. There's a lot of work to do in the next 20 years or so, but I think that with the solidarity of the disabled legal disabled legal professionals we're we're really with yourself Daniel and and other organisations and indeed the Law Society, we are forming a really exciting and really powerful group of fabulous lawyers and fabulous allies who are going to ensure that actually we're demonstrating on a day-to-day basis that yes we may have disabilities but we actually have an awful lot to offer and actually we as I mentioned earlier in our chat that we we have additional qualities and skills as a result of our disabilities that can be offered to the profession, to enhance the profession and our ability to deliver legal services to, to clients and and so on. So there is a long way to go but

I'm just delighted that we are more in a position to make our voices heard more now than we were let's say when I qualified. Thank you.

DH: I, I really couldn't agree more and for the people watching who might not be familiar with disability in law, I think it's important to point out our intimacy and we are a very close community. Um there are several different groups who operate in disability in law. You know, I mean like the Association of Disabled Lawyers, Lawyers with Disabilities Division, AllBar, BDABar and what people might not realise is we we were so close together, we all know each other, we support each other, we support each other's aims and objectives and that's what i like about our community. 

FH: Me too, Daniel, and I think this campaign you know will I’m sure help and and i know that's what we want to achieve in putting us all out there making us more visible um so that we know and younger people coming through the profession know that oh yeah there's somebody like me or there's somebody who has a similar disability to me or just there's somebody who has a disability and to feel part of that community. I think

DH: it's so important. The fact we do work so closely as I like what a tight community we are.

FH: You know we all become we all become supporters of one another, friends and, you know, mentors and and all of this which which I didn't have when I qualified, I didn't know anybody else.

DH: Unfortunately, I am running out of questions. It's been a fantastic interview. And you've shared some brilliant experiences that people will benefit from.

FH: I really hope so. 

DH: What is the one thing you would like people to take away with them from this interview?

FH: That we're out there there there are people out there we're here as as you were just saying Daniel you know that the community is fabulously supportive. So please you know reach out and and engage and and and get the support that's
there that didn't used to be there

DH: Thank you for the interview. I absolutely enjoyed it. This has been Fiona Hewitt from Neves Solicitors where she is a Senior Associate and Head of Employment and Commercial Dispute. For the people who don't know who I am, I am the Chair of the Association of Disabled Lawyers. It's been a brilliant interview and I look forward to seeing you for the next one.