Tim Martin OBE, the new CEO of SBA, The Solicitors’ Charity

Tim Martin became CEO at SBA the Solicitors’ Charity in December 2011 having completed a 36-year career in the Royal Navy during which he served at sea around the world as a logistics officer but also practised as a barrister and as a social worker. He has extensive experience in senior leadership positions and in policy formulation and was awarded the OBE for his work as Head of the Naval Personal and Family Service in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2006 and 2011. A trustee of the RN Benevolent Trust and of the Union Jack Club at Waterloo, Tim is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Chartered Management Institute.

SBA Chairman David Biddle

David Biddle became Chairman of the SBA in June 2011. He succeeded David Wyatt, who continues to chair the SBA’s Business Development Group.

“It is an excellent opportunity to help those who have been less fortunate than myself.”

David Biddle is a fourth generation solicitor, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather practised successively in the same firm since 1871. On becoming a partner in Biddle & Co. in 1970 he also became a Life Member of the SBA and joined the Board of the SBA in 1995. Following a merger with Pinsents in 2001 he moved his private client practice to Russell-Cooke from which he retired in 2010.

Naomi Maxwell and her mum shortly before their half marathon

Naomi writes…

After completing the 10k race a year ago, I was looking for the next challenge, I decided that I would enter the Bristol Half Marathon. I wanted to do it for a charity as I knew that this would spur me on in my training and running on the day.

“I was very grateful that there was someone there to help as it would have been hard due to the timing of my father’s illness, and thankfully his recovery, for him to have been able to help fund my studies.”

I really wanted to run for a charity that was personal to me. The SBA is a charity that is very close to my heart as it enabled me to go to University as well as help my father financially when he was diagnosed with Cancer over ten years ago and subsequently lost his business .

The SBA wrote to me in my last year of college offering me financial help to go to university. The SBA was aware that due to my father’s ill health that I may not have the money to go to university.

My father had worked very hard as a Solicitor and still does and this is something that I have always admired. So I was very grateful that there was someone there to help as it would have been hard due to the timing of my father’s illness, and thankfully his recovery, for him to have been able to help fund my studies.

In my first year the grant helped me to fund my first computer and in my final year I was given more than the first two years which gave me enough money to not work, as much as I previously had, so that I could concentrate on my dissertation. Without this financial help I am almost certain that I would not have had the opportunity to go to University.

In 2005 I graduated UWE, Bristol, with a Bachelor of Honors Degree in English.
Now I would like to give something back to the SBA by raising awareness for them and hopefully raise some money for their cause.

Matthew Rhodes OBE, Director of Roll on Friday; Phyllida Wilson, Business Development Director, SBA; Clive Anderson, Vice Patron, SBA; Maxine Pillinger, Business Development Director, Alexander Mann Solutions.

Photo www.mdcomms.co.uk

Margaret Heathcote, President, City of Westminster and Holborn Law Society; Christine Williams, Solicitor, Quastel Midgen

David Long, Consultant, Charles Russell LLP; Clive Anderson, Vice Patron, SBA

Timothy Cuthbertson, Trustee, SBA; Graham Camps, Trustee, SBA; Matthew Robbins, Trustee, SBA

The band playing on the lawn

A group shot at the ILEX stand

About the event…

The Legal Charities Garden Party was instituted by the Holborn Law Society (now the City of Westminster and Holborn Law Society) to fundraise for a number of legal charities to whom all proceeds go. These include SBA The Solicitors’ Charity; Barristers’ Benevolent Association; Institute of Barristers’ Clerks Benevolent Fund; United Law Clerks’ Society; Institute of Legal Executives Benevolent Fund Law Care.

Since its inception in 1968 the Garden Party has been a popular meeting place for judges, solicitors, barristers, barristers’ clerks and legal executives. Every year the Legal Charities Garden Party has attracted around 1,500 guests who enjoy an evening networking in the beautiful surroundings of Lincoln’s Inn catching up with old friends and perhaps meeting new ones.

The Garden Party is organised by volunteers comprised of representatives from the six benefiting charities and the City of Westminster and Holborn Law Society and is chaired by James Furber, senior partner at Farrer & Co.

Left to right: Nazir Afzal, OBE Chief Crown Prosecutor, Crown Prosecution Service; Linda Lee, President, The Law Society; Clive Anderson, Vice Patron, SBA and Phyllida Wilson, Business Development Director, SBA.

Clive Anderson, in his capacity as Vice Patron of SBA The Solicitors’ Charity, gave a rousing and suitably irreverent speech at the Law Society’s Presidents’ and Secretaries’ Conference dinner on Friday 13th May. The evening was held at the Waldorf Hilton, Aldwych and comprised a drinks reception followed by dinner. Other speakers included Linda Lee, President of the Law Society and Nazir Afzal OBE, Chief Crown Prosecutor, Crown Prosecution Service.

Sarah approached us for help in 2010. She had heard of SBA The Solicitors’ Charity from a solicitor colleague. Her story makes distressing reading.

It is something that could happen to any one of us.

Sarah embraced life from an early age. She excelled at school academically and at sport, particularly running and tennis. She and her brother were the first in her family ever to go to University and she worked in the holidays to pay for her own education. She graduated with an excellent degree in Law from Nottingham University.

“SBA has given me a lifeline”

She trained and qualified in 2008 with a large law firm in the Midlands. Within two months of starting to practise as a solicitor she started to experience alarming pins and needles in her feet and a progressive numbness which moved up her legs to her stomach. Within 3 weeks Sarah was finding it painful to walk and suffered permanent vertigo so that the room was constantly spinning and out of focus. When within a matter of weeks she could no longer stand she was admitted to hospital for tests. She didn’t know what to think. She thought she might have a brain tumour.

In January 2009 she was diagnosed with MS and given steroids which helped, at least initially. Sarah was able to start working for a few hours, several days a week. However, her firm was making a wave of cuts and Sarah was selected for redundancy. She left work in April 2009.

Her health has been up and down and she has to go into hospital regularly for a number of days to receive by drip the steroids that she so badly needs to control her condition…She now needs to use a stick to walk and has a lightweight wheelchair – which she refuses to rely on.

Bright and irrepressibly bubbly, Sarah’s courage is an inspiration. She keeps herself constantly busy and refuses to give into her cruel illness. She says that MS is “not who she is – but what she has”. As a result of her aggressive MS causing regular relapses she is one of only 200 individuals in the country lucky enough to receive ground-breaking treatment which is already producing “fantastic” results. Sarah is just 29 years old.

“It has given me a chance to keep myself connected with the world and a chance to re-start my life again”

SBA has bought Sarah a laptop and is paying for her to undertake a Masters degree in Law (which she is taking part-time over two years) so that she can keep up-to-date with changes in the commercial legal world – and one day return to work. SBA also paid for her to have an essential short holiday.

Please help us to help more vulnerable young professionals like Sarah: sba.org.uk

Clive Anderson (Vice Patron SBA), Phyllida Wilson (Business Development Director SBA) and David Wyatt (Chairman SBA)

On 13th October, the great and the good of the legal profession gathered together at an evening launch party to celebrate the re-branding of the charity The Solicitors Benevolent Association – now known as SBA The Solicitors’ Charity. The launch was generously hosted by global law firm Reed Smith LLP in the London Eye Room of its Broadgate Tower offices which boasts spectacular views over the City.

Clive Anderson speaks at the launch

Clive Anderson, comedian, presenter, barrister and now Vice Patron of the SBA demonstrated that he still knows how to wow an audience and the evening also included lively speeches from David Wyatt, Chairman of the SBA and Stephen Ward, Director of Communications at The Law Society.

Clive Anderson talking to guests

The internationally renowned photographer Rankin very generously photographed Clive Anderson for our website and literature.

Stephen Ward (Director of Communications, The Law Society)

We would like to extend our enormous thanks and gratitude to those who helped to make the evening such a resounding success through their unstinting efforts and support:

• Reed Smith LLP
• The Law Society
• SEA Design
• Lexington Catering
• Rankin
• Savage Selection/The Ox House
• Organise Us
• Pete Riley

Hosted by global law firm Reed Smith LLP in the London Eye Room of its Broadgate Tower offices