New Chair and Vice-Chair of the BSB Equality and Diversity Committee
The Bar Standards Board welcomes Sally Hawkins, as the new Chair of its Equality and Diversity Committee and Declan O'Dempsey as the Vice Chair.
Sally Hawkins is an equalities consultant. She has assisted some of the UK’s foremost public services and private companies in the development of policies and practices that aim to overcome discrimination and disadvantage.
Sally also has considerable experience of governance and the development and implementation of professional standards. She is currently a lay member of the General Medical Council and of the Board of the Legal Complaints Service and she is the independent chair of Lewisham’s Standards Committee. She was a member of the Police Complaints Authority and an Independent Director of the Banking Code Standards Board. Declan O'Dempsey is a barrister at Cloisters who specialises in employment, discrimination, public and regulatory law. Declan has particular expertise in relation to the application of the Equality Duties.
His discrimination practice includes advising and representing in goods and services cases, especially the newer areas such as religion and belief. He has written extensively on age and disability discrimination. He has been commissioned as a co-author of the forthcoming Statutory Code on Discrimination in Goods Facilities and Services and Public Functions from the Commission for Equality and Human Rights. He was formerly a vice chair of the Bar Council’s Equality and Diversity Committee and chair of the Disability Sub-Group.
