Our Team
Kirsty Thomson Partner / Managing Director
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/kirsty-thomson-4068b6145/
Kirsty is a co-founding Partner / Managing Director, responsible for overall management and development of our organistaion. She also leads our Scottish Women’s Rights Centre (SWRC) and our Scottish Anti-Trafficking & Exploitation Centre (SATEC).
Kirsty has an LLM in International Human Rights Law and 13 years’ experience in practice as a human rights lawyer within Scotland. During this time, she managed a specialist legal service within a national law centre where she developed a collaborative human rights based approach working in the area of women’s rights, children’s rights and asylum/immigration law.
Kirsty has experience of designing, implementing and managing innovative legal projects. She has worked with legal and non-legal partners at a national and international level in order to pilot and deliver legal services more effectively.
Kirsty is a member of various advisory and working groups in human rights law. She is a legal expert in human trafficking and has published best practice standards, training and written publications in this area. She co-convenes the Scottish Working Group of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association and is the Scottish member for the Strategic Litigation Fund expert panel.
Jen Ang Director of Policy and Strategy
Twitter: @jenanglaw
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jenniferang/
Jen is a co-founder and Director, responsible for strategy and development as well as oversight of our policy, communications and training. She also leads our Scottish Just Law Centre (SJLC) and our social enterprise, JRS Knowhow.
Jen is an experienced human rights lawyer qualified to practice in Scotland, England and Wales, and New York State. She is a legal expert on asylum, human rights and children’s rights, and on the rights of survivors of torture, and is regularly asked to speak, and contribute to research, policy and publications in these areas.
Jen is also an experienced lecturer in law with the Open University, lecturing on Scots law and the law of England and Wales. She is an enthusiastic advocate of open education and widening access to education for all.
Andy Sirel Partner / Legal Director
Twitter: @andrewsirel
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/andy-sirel-968a1b57/
Andy is a co-founding Partner and Legal Director, responsible for supervision of legal casework. Andy also heads our Scottish Refugee & Migrant Centre. He has an LLM in International Human Rights Law and has been working in human rights law since 2010. He currently sits on the Law Society of Scotland’s Immigration & Asylum Sub-Committee as well as the Scottish Government’s Child Trafficking Strategy Group.
Andy is experienced in working directly with migrant children and young people, with a particular specialism in working with unaccompanied asylum seeking children and child victims of trafficking. He has represented migrant children in the national asylum and trafficking identification procedures, the immigration and asylum tribunals, and in Judicial Reviews in the Court of Session. He is an expert in age assessment, having successfully taken strategic litigation in this area as well as contributing to the drafting of the 2018 Scottish Government Practice Guidance on Age Assessment. He delivers training across the UK on age assessment best practice.
Prior to this, Andy worked as a Legal Officer at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, supervising the implementation of British, Irish and Cypriot judgments from the European Court of Human Rights. He also enjoys lecturing at the University of Glasgow, where he has taught European Human Rights Law for over 7 years.
Jenny Cook Head of Operations
Jenny is our Head of Operations, managing the overall daily operations and responsible for human resources and charitable finance. She is also the charity’s Data Protection Officer and is the first point of contact for enquiries about our organisation.
Jenny has nearly 10 years’ experience working for charities across the United Kingdom. She has held positions in the healthcare and financial sectors, managing quality assurance and international recruitment.