Yvonne Brown

Yvonne Brown is the consultant and practice manager of Legal Management Consulting in London and the former Chair and founding member of the Black Solicitors??? Network (BSN).

Yvonne was born in Hackney, London, in 1961 and attended Woodberry Down School. She graduated in Law with honours from the University of Leicester. She qualified as a solicitor in 1985 and became an Assistant Solicitor with Dowse and Co.

In 1989 she joined the West End firm Claude Hornby and Cox, where she became a partner. She remained at Claude Hornby and Cox until 1994 when she established her own firm, Yvonne Brown & Co in Hackney, London, offering Legal Aid advice on children, family and education matters. Her firm was the first in Hackney to gain a Legal Aid franchise in the area of Education Law. Yvonne was committed to the education work undertaken by the firm and has said that she believes that unless black children are afforded a proper opportunity of securing a good education, then the whole black community will suffer in the longer term.

In 1996, BSN was established to represent black and ethnic minority solicitors and under Yvonne???s leadership membership grew considerably from the initial few hundred. She remains an honorary board member of the BSN and in recognition of her work, the organisation awarded her the Outstanding Solicitor of the Year award in 2006. The same year she was short-listed for the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year (LALY) award in the family category.

Yvonne has been a Higher Court Advocate since 1998 and she is also on the Family Law and Children Panel.

In 2008, Yvonne wound down her practise and established Legal Management Consulting which she set up to advise law firms to excel in practice management. She also joined the leading family law firm Goodman Ray, as a consultant.

Read the Black Lawyers Directory interview with Yvonne.