Legal award for Carrie

Carrie Laws from The Family Law Company’s Plymouth team was named this year’s Young Lawyer of the Year at the Plymouth Law Society’s annual dinner held at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel.

The award was open to solicitors, legal executives, trainees and paralegals practising for 10 years or less. Carrie was nominated for the award by her colleagues and was one of ten finalists.

Carrie said: “I was rather surprised when my name was announced; the other nominees were all outstanding and I wasn’t expecting it at all.”

The criteria stated that the individual ‘must have made a significant contribution to both its organisation and the city; supporting the local community in which they practice’. When Peter Shears, Professor of Consumer Law and Policy at University of Plymouth was announcing the winner, he referred to the winner as being someone who gives all of herself to everything that she does.

Carrie, who is an Associate with The Family Law Company, has worked in private practice in Plymouth since 2008, qualifying as a Legal Executive in 2011.

As well as her work in the grittier side of family law, including legal aid cases, she is safeguarding Governor for a local secondary school, ambassador for Plymouth Parent Advocacy Project (PPAP) and member of the management committee for Plymouth Food Bank.

Carrie works tirelessly for charities in the city, including organising monthly food collections for Plymouth Foodbank and collections for Dementia Alliance as well as arranging sponsored sporting events and corporate fundraisers. She has pledged to raise over £10,000 by 2020 for PPAP.

Jonathan Madge, who heads up The Family Law Company in Plymouth, said:

“We are all delighted that Carrie has won this award - in our opinion she is a deserving winner.

“It is great that Plymouth Law Society creates this opportunity for the profession to recognise the wide-ranging contribution made by Carrie and many other younger lawyers to the wellbeing of the city and everyone who lives here. Although she works in a very demanding area of law Carrie still manages to find the time and energy outside her working day to give more to the local community.”