1. Education and personal life

2. Career

3. Recognition

4. References

Education and personal life

Chahal was born in Punjab, India. She attended primary school in Twickenham and the Kneller Girls' School.^[2]

She has a BA in sociology from the University of Sussex. She qualified in law in 1990, joined Bindmans LLP in 1993 and became a partner in 1995.^[1] Chahal is married to Stephen Pierce and they have two children, a daughter Asta-Chahal Pierce, and a son Jamie Chahal-Pierce.^[2]

Career

Chahal has worked on several high-profile cases including that of right-to-die campaigners Debbie Purdy, as a follow-up to which she appeared on BBC Radio 4's 2019 Test Case: The Legacy of Debbie Purdy, in discussion with professor Deborah Bowman, Purdy's husband Omar Puente, and barrister and peer Charlie Falconer,^[3] and Omid T. who travelled to Switzerland for an assisted death in October 2018 while waiting for the courts to consider his case seeking "a declaration under Section 4 (2) of the Human Rights Act that Section 2 (1) of the Suicide Act 1961 which makes assisting in a suicide a criminal offence is incompatible with his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights".^[4]

She represented the "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe in his appeal to have a tariff, or minimum term, set for his sentence, and received hate-mail and negative media coverage. In response she said "If I wasn't the person I am I would have asked myself why I took that case on — but I felt I was doing my job as a lawyer. Peter Sutcliffe is entitled to good legal representation as much as anyone else. It is a fundamental right enshrined in our legal system. My job is to do the best I can and not to be bullied and distracted from that course."^[5]

She represented a mother taking action against a doctor who circumcised her son at the father's request without the mother's consent, and represented Michael Sandford, a British man with autism arrested after trying to take a policeman's gun at a Donald Trump rally.^[6]

Recognition

She was appointed Queen's Counsel (honoris causa) in 2014. This distinction given to lawyers "recognises their pioneering contribution to the law of England and Wales outside of practice in the courts". In Chahal's case it was awarded "for her innovative use of the Human Rights Act to help ordinary people, often vulnerable, to achieve success before the highest courts in what many would have considered unarguable cases or would have been unwilling to take".^[7]

• March 2018: Chahal was appointed an Associate Fellow, Centre for Public Law, University of Cambridge{{cn|date=March 2019}}
• February 2016: Chahal was listed in the Thompson Reuter's Top 100 Super Lawyers List, Public & Admin Law{{cn|date=March 2019}}
• January 2016: Chahal was listed in the Black Lawyers Directory in the first ever "Movers and Shakers" list of the most influential and powerful black lawyers{{cn|date=March 2019}}
• March 2012: Chahal was listed in The Times Law 100 chosen from the nation's 150,000 judges and lawyers  as one of the most influential 100 lawyers in society^[8]
• May 2011: Chahal was  Public Law and Human Rights Lawyer of the Year by the Society of Asian Lawyers{{cn|date=March 2019}}
• 2008: Chahal was named the Law Society's Solicitor of the Year.^[5]
• Oct 2006: Chahal was Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year- Mental Health, for constantly pushing the boundaries of the law on behalf of those with mental illness and the vulnerable{{cn|date=March 2019}}

In 2008 the Guardian's Afua Hirsch noted that Saimo had 'built a career on helping people turn disadvantage into pioneering litigation, a record that won her the legal profession's highest accolade... Law Society Solicitor of the Year.'^[5]

References

• The Scarlet Lady (disambiguation)
• The Scarlet Letter (1908 film)
• The Scarlet Letter (1913 film)
• The Scarlet Letter (1922 film)
• The Scarlet Letter (disambiguation)
• The Scarlet Letter (film)
• The Scarlet Letter/In Popular Culture
• The Scarlet Letter (TV miniseries)
• The Scarlet Pimpernel (disambiguation)
• The Scarlett Getter
• The Scarlett Letter (1908 film)
• The Scarlett Letter (1913 film)
• The Scarlet Tulip
• The Scarlet Tulip EP
• The Scarlet Tulip (EP)
• The Scarlet Witch (film)
• The Scarlet Wooing
• The Scarlet Worm
• The Scar Project
• The Scarred People
• The Scars Between Us
• The Scarsdale Public Schools
• The Scary Scooby Funnies
• The Scattering (album)
• The Scattering (Cutting Crew)