Emily used her Shackleton Award to launch England’s very first non-profit criminal law practice, the Centre for Criminal Appeals (CCA), which will investigate wrongful conviction cases and present them to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Court of Appeal. Two out of three prisoners asking for a second appeal are unable to find a lawyer to help them, and legal aid cuts are only making this situation worse. When she graduated from law school, Emily established Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO), which investigates and litigates provable claims of actual innocence on behalf of prisoners in the United States. IPNO grew from a staff of one to nine during her tenure, and has so far freed 22 innocent prisoners. Returning to the UK in 2004, Emily has been working with the UK legal action charity Reprieve. In 2007, working as a UK solicitor, Emily brought a wrongful conviction case to the Court of Appeal via the Criminal Cases Review Commission, as a test of the proposed CCA methodology. The Court quashed the conviction in 2010 and the prisoner is now free and struggling to rebuild his life in the free world.

Award Date: July 2012