Orlagh Kelly: Keeley Lengthorn, welcome to the Get Briefed podcast.

Keeley Lengthorn: Thank you for having me.

Orlagh Kelly: I think, Keeley, we might have to give you the credit for possibly the start of the Get Briefed podcast because you did visit us in Belfast around this time last year and you and I recorded something on site here in our studio. And that was so successful and so well received that we decided to do some more of that. And it has been working out really well since. So thank you for that.

Keeley Lengthorn: No, thank you. Yeah, I can't believe it's been a year.

Orlagh Kelly: I know, absolutely. So for those people who are listening and maybe haven't heard of you or of George's Law before, do you want to tell us a bit about yourself in terms of your profession?

Keeley Lengthorn: Yep, so I am the head of Public Law Children London at RWK Goodman. I've been a solicitor for longer than I care to remember, probably about 15 years. And I'm the founder of George's Law, which is a national campaign aimed at helping families who lose children under around 24 weeks gestation.

Orlagh Kelly: And before we move on to George's Law — I know that that's a very interesting and emotive topic for all of us — but in terms of your career as a public law solicitor, what type of work are you typically involved in in your role?

Keeley Lengthorn: So I undertake care proceedings. I'm a member of the Children Panel. So I represent parents, children through their guardian or separately, and interveners in public law proceedings. So I do a lot of dead and injured children cases, fictitious illness, neglect cases, that sort of thing. I'm moving away a little bit from doing as much domestic abuse work now. So it is mostly public law work, but my heart and soul when I started in my profession many moons ago was domestic abuse. That was my main forte and that's what I did a lot of.

Orlagh Kelly: And so, I mean, even to the listener that maybe doesn't know what public law is really, from the brief description that you've given, I think it'll be clear that you work in quite a traumatic area in relation to children.

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, it's very traumatic. Family law is very traumatic anyway. I know we've had this discussion lots of times before — about support within the profession — but yeah, public law proceedings is particularly emotive and can be particularly triggering for me as well in light of my circumstances and what happened to me. But it is a very emotive subject. It can be very hard work. And I think — it's funny because I've just got two new paralegals — and the spiel that I always give them when they start is that this is going to be really tough and you've got to be really careful not to take it home with you. So for instance, if we get a dead child case and we're going to have to look at medical evidence and look at X-rays and different expert reports and pictures — I always speak to them about that and say, look, this is going to be difficult and I'll make sure everything's labelled. So if they're having a bad day or they're working from home, it's not something that they look at at home. I wouldn't want them ever to do that. So I'll make sure we're together and we check in regularly in relation to that. And I think it's really important — and it's really important as a profession and as care practitioners — that we actually stick together. I spoke to a solicitor who was against me this week and she made a really good point that although we're all in the same sea, we're all in different boats, but we're all doing the same job with one thing in common, which is for the child. And that's why we need to be nice to each other. And despite the fact we're opponents, we're not an American drama. We're not on Suits. So yeah, I think in family law in particular, we need to be nice to each other. It's really important.

Orlagh Kelly: You're right, we do all have to be nice to each other. I mean, I've chatted before about — you know — I spent 12 years at the bar working in children's law cases, and it does bring its own set of issues. And you and I have talked about the fact that you might potentially suffer from vicarious trauma as a professional working in this area. And that's something that it's interesting for me to hear about — the mechanisms that, as a head of department essentially, you've put in place to protect the younger people within your department, such as don't work on this information at home, let's check in with each other. Certainly when I was a baby barrister, I probably could have done with that type of support or help that wasn't available 20 years ago. So it's heartening to hear that at least the profession has moved on somewhat. Although I'm guessing, given your empathetic nature, it might be that you've moved that on somewhat yourself as opposed to the profession generally. Would that be right?

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, I think that's definitely right. We've still got a long way to go. I think Covid has changed us in a lot of ways and forced us to put things in place as managers and as heads of department. But I think there is still a lot of work to be done. There is a lot of support that needs putting in place. I know that when I had George and I lost George, I can remember being discharged from the hospital and a midwife kept coming back to me saying — so you're going back to do this job where you have to deal with dead and injured children, what support is put in place from the Law Society or from the SRA to support you? And I kept saying, none, none, none, none. They were like, so when you see these dead cases, or dealing with these dead children cases, are you offered counselling? No. And one thing I've actually found at RWK Goodman is that they have a counsellor and they have sessions put in place for us if we need that support.

So I think businesses are getting better at doing it, but I think the profession as a whole needs to put in more support for practitioners working in this really traumatic area.

Orlagh Kelly: I mean, I certainly hadn't heard of vicarious trauma when you and I had the conversation about that midwife in the hospital asking you about what supports were available. And it was when I started to explore it and understand the content that many lawyers — solicitors and barristers, paralegals, judges, and other people within the legal environment — are expected to be exposed to on a day-to-day basis without any mental health supports available, or even education to understand why there might be an issue. And it might be that if people were sufficiently educated in advance, they might choose not to do that area of law on the basis that they would already know they had a pre-existing concern, in which case that would not be a good career move for them. I can think back to when I was, you know, two or three months on my feet at the bar having to cover a case for a more senior counsel and it was about sexual abuse. And I had never ever read or heard of any of the content that I was confronted with on that day. It had never ever crossed my path in the first 25 years of my life. And so I found that very difficult at the time. But I did not know that it could lead to vicarious trauma. And so one of the things that we did off the back of that is we worked with some specialists and developed education in vicarious trauma for lawyers, which is now available. So there you go. Thanks to you. The profession has a little bit more support than it previously had.

It is something that — in a world where we think more about mental health and in a profession where we're talking about mental health — it's important to understand what can be the triggers for that. And it's the types of content that you're expected to deal with day to day.

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, it is. And like you said, it's for everyone. It's for judges. It's for junior clerks when they're copying bundles. I don't know if everyone copies bundles anymore for barristers, but yeah, the person copying photos and things like that. And I think if we're going to retain good talent within the profession in terms of youngsters coming up, then they need to be adequately supported in that sense. And that's really, really important to me as a head of department and having junior people underneath me — it's important that they feel supported, and important that they have the support put in place for them in order to be good lawyers.

Orlagh Kelly: And it's good for business as well, if you can support the people around you and make sure that they stay healthy.

Keeley Lengthorn: It really does pay dividends. It'd be great for your retention rates, yeah. And it's great for your reputation.

Orlagh Kelly: Well, I think the fact that you've been able — I know that you've just started at RWK relatively recently — the fact that you've been able to identify that they've gone above and beyond for their teams is wonderful. And I'm sure that they're reaping the rewards for that.

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they're really good. They've got really good strategies put in place in terms of wellbeing and wellbeing is really, really at the heart of the workforce and what they're doing. So yeah, it's really good.

Orlagh Kelly: Very good. And so, we've mentioned George a little bit and you mentioned him in passing there. Can you tell us a little bit about your story and the background again, for anyone that maybe hasn't heard this?

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, so I lost my son George on the 3rd of March 2022. George was my third loss, having had an early miscarriage in 2020 and then a ruptured ectopic pregnancy in 2021. George was an IVF baby, my only surviving embryo. Unfortunately my waters broke unexpectedly and he was born sleeping.

And then immediately after George's death, I set up a JustGiving page to try and raise some money for the charities that had helped us — in terms of giving George a cold cot so we could have him christened, and in terms of providing us with a memory box so we had some things that we could cherish and take home with us in terms of prints and photographs.

In July of 2022, I started a national campaign with Angela Crawley MP, as she then was, to implement the Miscarriage Leave Bill. So that was put through Parliament in July and was a success at the first reading. And then it fell away at the second reading. And just before that, it became known as George's Law. So we are now trying to push that through with a new MP, Carolyn Harris, who's helping us. And that's going through our Labour government and we're just pushing on Labour now to try and amend the Parental Bereavement Act 2018. So you have Jack's Law at paragraph one, which Jack's mum pushed through Parliament, and that gives you statutory protection in the workplace for losses over 24 weeks. And then you'll have George's Law at paragraph two, which will grant you three days paid leave for any loss you incur under 24 weeks for both parents.

Orlagh Kelly: And so I think — well, there are several things that come out of what you've just told me. I think the first thing is the fact that you had such consecutive and significant losses in your family. And yet, as a grieving mother, you were able to pull yourself together in such a fashion that you created a national baby loss campaign and created so much energy around that. And I know that it's very well known within the legal industry and beyond, and that you work tirelessly promoting George's Law. The fact that you were able to do that is really incredible. And I hope that you know how much good work that you're doing and how much inspiration that you bring to everyone that gets the opportunity to work for you and work with you.

Keeley Lengthorn: I think sometimes I do forget that. I think after George died, it was the only thing that sort of drove me to try and deal with my grief and try to deal with what had happened. And it has helped me — I don't say overcome that grief because I still grieve for him every day — but it certainly helped me to try and make a difference so that I have a legacy for him. It's important that I have a legacy for him. And it's important that I help other families and that George helps other families going through this — because there's so many people that have reached out to me and said, my employer made me go back to work like the day after I lost my baby. And it breaks my heart to think that these people are potentially having to leave their children. Like I had to leave George at a mortuary on a Thursday night, and the thought that I've got a midwife coming to stop my milk on a Friday morning because I've just had a baby — but my baby hasn't survived — but really the law says I should be in the office or I should be in court. And there needs to be — this gap needs to be filled. And I say it over and again, I know you've heard me say it so many times, but why has no one done this until now?

Orlagh Kelly: I think — what strikes me from what you're saying, and I'm anticipating that the audience will be thinking — does it not exist already? And the thing is, most people don't understand there is no provision for a mother and a father, for a family who suffer a miscarriage or a loss pre-24 weeks, for any paid statutory leave. And all you're suggesting is three days. It's not a lot. Certainly not enough to grieve a child, but it's something that people could just —

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, it's something that they could hold on to. It's only three days. When you've got a funeral to plan, it's bad enough planning a funeral for any family member or any friend, but when you've just had a baby, it's excruciating because you've got the mental and the physical anguish. You're trying to get through and yeah, all we're asking for is three days. New Zealand are doing it and that's what we're trying to follow suit with.

In the meantime, there is more that we can be doing. We know that as lawyers, laws take a long time to go through, unfortunately, and this isn't going to happen overnight. But in the meantime, there's plenty that we can be doing. We're already talking about it a lot more, which is brilliant. We're removing the stigma associated with baby loss, which we've had historically, but we need to be doing more. We need to be putting in place, for instance, baby loss policies within every workplace. It takes nothing to do that as an employer. Put in place training — we've developed the national baby loss training programme and everyone needs to be doing that — so that everyone knows when they get that WhatsApp message or when they get that call from their employee saying I've had a loss, they know what to say or they know what to do. As a bereaved mother, I will always remember the things that people said to me after George died — the things that people said to me, and the lovely things that people said to me — but it's just so important that you say the right thing to that person.

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely. And so there are a couple of things I want to circle back on with you. First of all, for anyone listening — this is not a statutory right that any parent has right now, in either role, either the person carrying the baby or the paternal role. The fact that that doesn't exist is extraordinary. So some people — I appreciate we've talked about this a lot — but some people say, well, just take some sick leave. Why do you need to have particular leave for this?

Keeley Lengthorn: And I've screamed at people over and over and over again saying it's not sick leave, my baby died, I wasn't sick. And why should you have to take it as sick leave or why should you have to take it as annual leave? Because if you then go for a new job, your stats might be known to you and they're going to say, so you've had — I don't know — a week off and then you've got to explain your story again. Why should you have to explain your story again?

There should be this support put in law. Like you say, we're only asking for three days. We haven't got that at the moment. And it's so important that we just get rid of this lacuna in the law and that we have these three days paid leave to protect our employees.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. Now, what you were also saying is some of this stuff's not difficult. And you and I both know as lawyers, law is a very, very slow process. Legislation and initiation of legislation is very difficult and slow. But I think the point is that businesses and organisations don't have to wait until it's legally stipulated. This is something that they can choose to do — as we have at Briefed — and choose to put in place and provide for their employees, regardless of whether it's in law or not. And so there has been relatively recently some — I would say really quite joyous news — when we think about the NHS, I'm going to use that as an example. So can you tell us a bit about the NHS and what they have done?

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, so the NHS have just announced — we've done lots of work with the NHS, lots of baby loss campaigners across the country — and now they've just announced that they're going to offer every single employee 10 days paid leave for any loss under 24 weeks. Now, as they're the UK's biggest employer — 1.7 million employees — and let's face it, the NHS are on their knees. Now, if the NHS can do it, so can everyone else.

Now 10 days paid leave is a brilliant initiative and it's something that everyone should be following. So John Lewis have now followed suit, so they're doing it. I know ASOS are, Tesco, Lidl — a lot of the big players are now following suit with the NHS and saying, do you know what, if the NHS can do it, so can we. But I think we need to be doing that. And I would like to see the legal profession actually taking the lead on this and saying, do you know what — every chambers, every law firm in the country, now follow suit and implement a baby loss policy within your organisation. And you choose how many days you offer. Will it be three days, which would be the minimum as per George's Law? Or will you be going for 10 days or two weeks like the NHS?

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely. And those are conversations that should be happening. I mean, when I first reached out to you — having heard your story and seen you win awards and seen you on social media — as you know, your story resonated with me. I've had some friends who've had similar tragedies, and I wanted to try to find a way that we simply helped educate people to be supportive. I recall when I heard some news about my friends — really not knowing what to say or how to support. And I wondered had I had access to training in advance of that, could I have been a better friend? And so that was essentially the core goal for developing the training with yourself — that if we can help put in people's hands in advance the tools and the thought process around how to support someone, then when it does happen — when their colleague is returning to work after a loss, which I think given the statistics is inevitable in everyone's case — they can create a better and more empathetic workplace. Because there are some things that you don't think about if you haven't experienced it yourself. There's certainly a sort of a culture where people are afraid to say nothing, say the wrong thing. And you and I have talked about that and we identify some of those things in the training module. It's hard to believe that people would say those things, but they do. It's your experience of what you've heard.

And then there are other ways that you can support people that are really quite small and thoughtful, but they do make quite a significant impact. And we've talked about some of those in the training — for example, sending a card. Just going that little bit extra and sending somebody a card can be just a little piece of something that they can take comfort in at that tremendously difficult time.

Keeley Lengthorn: And the thing that I think I found worst was people saying nothing. I really respected the people that — maybe just burst out in tears when I saw them, not that I wanted them to cry — but the ones that said, I don't know what to say to you. Or the people that just hugged me and said, what should I say? I respected the people that said that more than the people who ignored me. So afterwards — people would walk past me on the street, people that I've known for half my life would walk past me on the street — and I think, why are they not speaking to me? And then I'll text them and say, well you walked past me today, and they go, yeah, I don't know what to say to you.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah. And so we're trying to solve that between us, one business at a time, aren't we — by trying to educate people that there's a better way to approach this that is more comfortable for everyone and can bring a little bit more comfort for the people that are grieving. And so we have an initiative — we've come up with this initiative for 2024. Last year we launched our training, which was available free to everyone in the workplace in 2023 in honour of Baby Loss Awareness Week.

What we're doing is we're trying to raise the bar a bit, trying to raise the game as such. And what we've launched is an initiative called Time for Action in Support of George's Law, where we offer 100 businesses or organisations this training for free during Baby Loss Awareness Week. We will support more than 100 businesses if we can get them, but our initial target is 100 businesses that all sign up for the initiative and roll out the training throughout their entire workforce for Baby Loss Awareness Week — to raise awareness both about how to support their own colleagues, and how to help George's Law, and to implement baby loss policies internally.

Keeley Lengthorn: Yep, yep. And it's so important that everyone signs up to this. We've worked really hard putting the training together and at Briefed you've been doing a sterling job and I just hope that we can get to more than 100.

Yeah, that would be it. And yeah, I think it's really important that people do the training — it takes no time at all, I think it takes about 10 minutes. And then think about implementing a baby loss policy in the workplace. Think about maybe implementing or appointing a fertility officer during Baby Loss Awareness Week. And that can be someone that an employee can contact if they don't feel like reaching out to HR to say, I'm having fertility treatment, or I've had a loss, or I'm pregnant and I don't want to be. And it's someone that they can confide in, someone they can talk to. I think businesses need to — during Baby Loss Awareness Week — show their support by going on social media and saying they've done the training, saying, look, we've now initiated a baby loss policy, this is where it is. And we've appointed a fertility officer and we support George's Law. Because the more support we have around George's Law, the more impact we're going to have on the Labour government to say, you know what, let's implement this — it's three days.

Orlagh Kelly: And there is an argument somewhat that the matter needs to be reverse-engineered — in that the more businesses that participate in the initiative, who roll out the training and, most effectively and importantly, implement paid leave for their employees — all that does is stack up as evidence to any government having a debate about legislation, that this is something that the people will essentially support and agree with. It's not a controversial thing.

And so the more businesses that we can get now voluntarily implementing at least three days of paid leave, the easier it will be to essentially create the legislation. And I know that there are lots of businesses out there doing it, quietly doing it — what we want them to do is shout about it.

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, we need — like I've said before — I want businesses to give other businesses FOMO. So I want them to be putting it on social media and on LinkedIn, saying we're doing this. And I want another business to look at that and go, my God, they're doing that, we should be doing that. And then I want them doing a post saying, look, we're now doing this as well. And then when I meet with the business and energy secretary again and he says to me, well, why do we need George's Law? I can say, because these people are doing it. The Labour government needs to be now taking the lead and saying, yeah, do you know what, this needs to become a statutory right and it needs to be law. And it will do — if you put all this support in place, believe you me, I know first-hand — it will do wonders for your retention rates as an employer. Because your employees will feel well looked after. And when they do come back to work after a devastating loss, they will respect you more for it.

Orlagh Kelly: And feel properly supported. Yeah, absolutely. There's no doubt that it's good for business. There's no doubt about that. People just need to know about it and if they can help amplify the message and get it out there, then that would be unbelievable. And so going forward for you — there's a new government in — you'll be working with a new MP to sponsor the legislation for you. How's that all going?

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, so it's been a little bit quiet. So I have left Carolyn alone — I think she's had her hands full the last four weeks. But yeah, once we get back from the summer vacation, we're going to be all guns blazing again. And I'm going to try and do some work with Carolyn for Baby Loss Awareness Week as well. We're going to try and get the government to sign up to this initiative and maybe do the training. So that's all going to be good. Try and get some more media traction.

I know that my firm RWK are going to be doing a lot in advance of and up to and including Baby Loss Awareness Week to try and get the message out there. So yeah, look out for things. And we're just relying on people again, basically just to keep the message going that George's Law is needed to become a statutory right. And then I hope and pray within the next year that I can get a meeting with the business secretary and maybe Keir Starmer and just push them to push this through Parliament.

Orlagh Kelly: That would be unbelievable if we were meeting this time next year with that level of success. But until then, we obviously are going to push as hard as we can to make workplaces better for everyone to work in.

Keeley Lengthorn: No, thank you. Thank you for your support throughout.

Orlagh Kelly: You're welcome. We love working with you. It's a great initiative that we really wholeheartedly enjoy supporting. So it's been a pleasure. And so apart from that — you've started a new role, you're recruiting, you're professionally growing — what else is going on in the world of Keeley?

Keeley Lengthorn: What else is going on? That's about it at the moment. There's a boxing match on the cards — not me this time, you'll be pleased to know.

Orlagh Kelly: Yes, because of course I watched you.

Keeley Lengthorn: Yeah, yeah, you watched me. So someone — my trainer is actually doing a boxing match for George on the 19th of September. So we're all rallying to support her at the moment. The teacher has become the pupil, which has been quite interesting. And I'm busy working with Abigail's Footsteps as well. So I was made an ambassador of Abigail's Footsteps last year. So I still do a lot of work with them. And again, they're really, really supportive of George's Law and have been an amazing support to me.

And it's about helping them and developing that charity really. They're the only baby loss counselling service in the whole of Kent. The pressure's on and there's constant pressure all the time in terms of funding cold cots to go to hospices or hospitals, because unfortunately the losses don't stop. We still have one in four every day. So Abigail's are a national charity and they're helping provide these cold cots and this comfort to these families. So I work closely with them — I suppose on a weekly basis now. So yeah, that's been very fulfilling for me. And again, it means that George is making a difference to other families.

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely. Well, that's wonderful to hear. Abigail's Footsteps are a wonderful charity. If anyone wants to look them up, you'll be able to find them online and we'll include the links to all of those that we've mentioned on here today. But Keeley, thank you so much for coming on. I'm looking forward to the countdown to our initiative and seeing if we hit this target of at least a hundred organisations. The more people can do to help us with that, the better. We really appreciate it. And I'll see you again soon.

Keeley Lengthorn: Yes, see you soon.