Overview
Hannah is a Senior Legal Officer at the Permanent Bureau (Secretariat) of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, working in the area of international child protection. For three years Hannah worked predominantly with the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention and the 1996 Hague Child Protection Convention and her role included preparing and participating in both parts of the sixth meeting of the Special Commission on the practical operation of these Conventions.
Her work is now focused on the 1993 Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention and she is also leading the research work of the Hague Conference in relation to the private international law issues surrounding the status of children, including issues arising from international surrogacy arrangements. Hannah co-drafted Preliminary Document No 11 of March 2011 on this topic and drafted, “A preliminary report on the issues arising in relation to international surrogacy arrangements” (Prel. Doc. No 10 of March 2012).
Hannah travels on behalf of the Permanent Bureau to all continents to promote the Hague Children’s Conventions and to provide training to Convention actors to ensure that the Conventions are properly implemented and operated.
Before joining the Hague Conference, Hannah practiced as a barrister at QEB for nearly five years. Her practice covered all areas of family law and she undertook a number of high profile ancillary relief and complex private law children matters. In 2006 she appeared in the High Court in the case of H v. H (Queen’s Proctor Intervening) (Validity of Japanese Divorce) [2007] 1 FLR 1318 as junior to Lucy Stone QC and in 2009 she appeared in the case of H v. H [2010] EWHC 158 (Fam) as a junior to Lewis Marks QC. Hannah also has hands-on experience of legal practice in a foreign jurisdiction having worked for Californian trial attorneys, Howarth & Smith, in Los Angeles.
In 2008 Hannah was awarded a Pegasus Scholarship by Inner Temple. She spent three months working as a judicial assistant to Chief Justice Diana Bryant in the Family Court of Australia. Hannah taught family law at Cambridge University from 2006 to 2009, alongside her practice at the bar.