Trustees

Appointed Chair: June 2019

Celia is a Circuit Judge sitting at Norwich and Ipswich County Courts dealing with complex children’s cases in adoption, public and private law. She previously worked as a District Judge in East Anglia, Stratford and Wells Street Family Proceedings Court, where she dealt with some of the first concurrent planning cases, pioneered by Coram.

She qualified as a solicitor in 1985. Before her appointment as a District Judge in 2004 she specialised in children’s cases in the family court and also defending young people accused of criminal offenses in the Youth Court.

She was a trustee of the Children’s Legal Centre based at Essex University before it became part of the Coram Group. She has since then served as a trustee of Coram Children’s Legal Centre and of Coram Cambridgeshire Adoption. She has a keen interest in training professionals and judges and has served as a judicial college tutor and trained judges on children’s law and practice in Tanzania and Zanzibar, as part of a joint initiative between UNICEF and Coram International.

Danielle is a family law barrister who was called to the bar in 1995, specialising in child law with extensive experience across the spectrum of public and private law proceedings. Her main area of practice lies in the public law field, where she regularly acts in care and adoption proceedings in all levels of court.

Danielle is experienced in complex and difficult cases, which include serious non-accidental injury, sexual, physical, and emotional harm to children, and cases that involve drug and alcohol abuse.

Danielle is a member of the Family Law Bar Association and the Association of Lawyers for Children.

In 2010 Jonathan introduced a key volunteer, Almudena Lara, who has helped Coram’s Research and Policy team develop its social finance capacity. He has advised Coram on a number of matters of policy. Jonathan is a member of the Children’s Services Committee, and a donor to Coram. Jonathan is a Professor of Economics at King’s College London. Previously, he held the roles of Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and Chief Economist at the Cabinet Office, where he advised the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O’Donnell, and Number 10 Downing Street on economic and financial issues.  Before that he held a number of other senior economic policy posts in UK government, including as Director for Children and Poverty at the Department for Work and Pensions. His particular interests include immigration, labour markets, poverty and social mobility.  He writes regularly for the national and international press, is on Twitter at @jdportes and blogs at notthetreasuryview.blogspot.com.

Kerry Smith joined Coram Children’s Legal Centre in 2016. She started her career at the Refugee Legal Centre and as a trainee at Bhatt Murphy Solicitors. Moving into international humanitarian work Kerry was posted in Ethiopia and Columbia for the International Committee of the Red Cross before returning to work as a Gender Adviser at Amnesty International UK focusing on trafficking. She then moved to work on children in conflict at Save the Children before joining Plan International UK as Head of Girls Rights and Youth and developing a new area of work on girls rights in the UK.  She joined the Helen Bamber Foundation as Chief Executive in May 2018.

Carol Storer OBE is a freelance consultant in the legal aid and advice sector. Carol worked as a solicitor for many years, representing tenants, the homeless and those who had suffered domestic abuse. She has worked in a law centre, local authority, private practice and Shelter before becoming Director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group in 2008-2018 and Interim Director of the charity Legal Action Group (LAG) 2019-2021.

Carol is currently a trustee at Advice Services Alliance as well as Coram Children’s Legal Centre. She was on The Law Society’s Access to Justice Committee for many years, including as Chair for three years. She co-chairs the Legal and Advice Sector Roundtable which was set up to support the sector in March 2020, when the first lockdown took place. She was a school governor for many years.

Douglas became a CCLC trustee in 2024. He has spent the majority of his professional life working as a solicitor in care proceedings, assisting disadvantaged children and their families, and he continues to represent parties in care proceedings as a solicitor and solicitor advocate.

Douglas co-founded Creighton & Partners in 1997, a small legally aided firm with only four employees that specialised in family law and, in particular, care proceedings. Creighton & Partners now has over 50 employees and is one of the UK’s leading care firms, recognised since 2022 by The Times in its list of the Top 200 Firms.

Douglas has been a member of the Liberal Democrat Social Care Policy Advisory Group and the Care Advisory Panel at the Anna Freud Centre, as well as a councillor in the London Borough of Islington. Douglas served on the Social Services Committee throughout his time as an Islington councillor, rising to the position of Chair between 2000 and 2002. Douglas was involved in a number of different projects during this time, including reorganising respite care for parents and carers of children with severe disabilities, a project on children in care with the Dartington Social Research Unit, and the establishment of the Camden and Islington Mental Health Trust.