Also honoured this year were Edward Braham, former senior partner of magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and current chair of savings and investment business M&G. Braham is knighted for services to corporate law and business.
Sadiq Khan, mayor of London and solicitor, formerly practising legal aid and human rights law as partner at Christian Khan before entering politics full-time, is knighted for political and public service.
Barrister, former shadow attorney general and MP for Islington South and Finsbury Emily Thornberry becomes a dame.
CBEs are awarded to Professor Richard Susskind, legal technology thinker, author and former Pinsent Masons partner, for services to information technology and the law, and to Charles Dhanowa, registrar at the Competition Appeal Tribunal, for services to competition law.
Judge Sehba Haroon Storey, a former Principal Judge who retired in July, also receives a CBE, for services to diversity and inclusion, as does M&A and capital markets lawyer James Palmer, former senior partner and currently senior corporate and governance lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills, for services to business and to law.
Denis-Smith (pictured), CEO of outsourced legal services provider Obelisk Support and founder of The First 100 Years and Next 100 Years campaigns, which promote and document the stories of women trailblazers, is awarded an OBE for services to women in law. Denis-Smith also set up Obelisk Support to help reverse the trend of female lawyers leaving work to raise a family and not coming back.
‘I just felt it was not only unfair but a huge waste of talent,’ she said.
Emma Morris, solicitor to the Infected Blood Inquiry, which announced its findings in May, also receives an OBE for public service.
MBEs went to Daniel Longman JP, deputy chair, Liverpool Bench, for services to the administration of justice, Claire Croot, paralegal business manager at the Crown Prosecution Service, for services to law and order, and Anna Twomlow, victim and witness care coordinator at the Serious Fraud Office, for services to the administration of justice.
