Nida Usman Chaudhary

Founder

Nida Usman Chaudhary holds LL.B (Hons) and LL.M in Law & Development from University of London. She is the Founder of Lahore Education And Research Network (LEARN) and Women in Law Initiative Pakistan. She curated and led the project 'increasing women's representation in law' by Ministry of Law and Justice, Group Development Pakistan and Women in Law Initiative Pakistan supported by Australian High Commission and the British High Commission. She was the founding Chairperson of the Gender Equality and Diversity Committee of the Lahore High Court Bar Association from 2018-20. She has been at the forefront of bringing the notion of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in law to Pakistan through her engagement as the Vice Principal and Director of International Programmes at School of Law, Lahore in 2013. She won the prestigious Justitia Award, Vienna for academia international in 2021 and for her women's rights activism as a global top 50 woman, in Sri Lanka in 2023. She was also honoured by the Governor of Punjab on the 75th Independence Day of Pakistan through a certificate of Recognition. Nida was also featured in Femilist 100 from from global south by Gender Security Project in 2021 and received the 'emerging women leader' award in 2018 by SEPLAA SewEGap, Pakistan. She has considerable counselling and academic experience and has been teaching law since 2005. She occasionally contributes articles on legal issues to newspapers and academic blogs and is an internationally published author of several papers on investment law. She was also engaged to give her legal opinion on BITS and conduct capacity building sessions on international investment laws for the Punjab Board of Investment and Trade (PBIT) when she was working at RSIL, Pakistan. She combines her professional interests in law and human rights with her activism on environmental and development issues. During her time in Law School, she served as the head of the Human Rights Society at University College Lahore (UCL) and organized talks on the law of negligence in light of the Margalla Towers collapse in the devastating earthquake of 2005. She also arranged sessions on the abolition of the death penalty during her time as head of the society at UCL. Whilst still a student, she was actively involved with the Lahore Bachao Tehreek (Save Lahore Movement) to stop the widening of the canal bank road and to preserve its flora and fauna. She comes from a background of creative arts through which she learned the importance of using art as a tool to communicate revolutionary ideas.  Her love for creative arts has led her to venture into writing fiction and her debut short story features in the highly anticipated anthology on stories from the pandemic by Liberty Books Pakistan. Nida wishes to uplift the writing industry in Pakistan and believes that our stories much reach global audiences. In order to promote the work of local authors, she became one of the founding members of 'Authors' Alliance Pk' along with Awais Khan, Laaleen Sukhera, Mehr F. Hussain and Sara Naveed.

Anoshay Fazal – Advisory Member

Ms. Anoshay Fazal is associated with Lahore Education and Research Network. She holds an LL.B (Hons) degree and LL.M from University of London. She does freelance research work mainly on the environment, refugees and human rights. Her research experience with professors from LUMS spans over 5 years.

Barrister Maryam Khan – Core Team Member

Barrister Maryam Khan LLB (Hons) – University of London (international Programs) Bar-at-Law- Inns of court school of law Member of the Honourable Society of Lincolns Inn Maryam is an advocate of the High Court and appears regularly in the High Courts and Subordinate Courts of Pakistan. She specializes in service and labour laws, banking laws, company laws, property laws, family laws, constitutional law, Laws of transport, intellectual property laws, consumer protection laws and various other civil litigation matters. Maryam was part of the team that handled the case involving Agritech’s restructuring of creditor’s liability. Maryam has a range of experience in drafting petitions, rendering opinions and vetting agreements. Maryam is Adjunct faculty for law at the Kinnaird College for Women and at the Quaid-e-Azam Law. She was the Vice-chairperson for the Gender Equality Committee at the Lahore High Court Bar Association, she actively works for women’s empowerment and gender equality within the legal sector. She was appointed as Amicus Curiae by the Honourable Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court in the case of Abdullah Malik v. Asim Hafeez, Civil Judge Islamabad, to assist the court on alleviating child labour. She was appointed as Amicus Curiae by the Honourable Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court in the case of Shahzain Khan Mandokhel v. Federal Government through Ministry of Interior, Islamabad to assist the court on the Constitutional right of citizens in terms of human dignity. She was appointed as Amicus Curiae by the Honourable Mr. Justice Shaan Gul in the case of Sumera Mehmood v. IG Police involving gender equality and equal protection of rights. Maryam has been instrumental in taking LEARN forward and her contribution to the network in a very short span of time has been most valuable. She was the Co-Organizer of the violence against women’s conference by LEARN in association with the UN Women Pakistan. She has also contributed to the LEAN law student meet and is working on the ‘equality is a state of mind’ project under LEARN. She has also helped conduct our roundtable discussion on ‘Understanding Harassment’ at the Lahore High Court 2018. LEARN benefits immensely from her input and dedication to this network. Maryam was also the master of ceremonies at the National Conference held at the Supreme court of Pakistan hosted by the Law and Justice Commission in July 2023 ‘Resilient Pakistan: Calibrating Population and Resources’.

Maria Chaudhry – Advisory Member

Maria holds LL.B (Hons) from University of London and LL.M from Queen Mary, UK. She has a teaching experience of over 8 years. She has been involved in international research projects and manages our conferences and events. She is also involved in our women in law series and has been advising us on the women in law network since its inception in 2016.

Alizeh Akbar Meer – Volunteer

Alizeh is a graduate of University of London External Programmes (TMUC.) She has worked tirelessly with Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) specifically for women’s Rights. She has headed youth based internship programs for the underprivileged children, women, as well as the Khawaja Sira community. Alizeh’s time as a legal intern at AGHS has added greatly to her legal experience. She has also volunteered her time for our Violence against Women Conference in association with UN women Pakistan and was a core team member at the Asma Jahangir: Empowerment for Justice Conference 2018. She is a dedicated, self-motivated, young professional and we immensely value her contribution to our various managerial tasks.

Jugnoo Kazmi – Women in Law Islamabad Chapter Lead

S. Jugnoo Kazmi is a Barrister of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn. She graduated from the University of Kent in 2015 with an LL.B (Hons) and thereafter completed the Bar Course at City, University of London and the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn in 2016.

After working for a litigation set in Islamabad and briefly as a Legal Consultant in-house, she joined the Supreme Court of Pakistan as a Law Clerk to an Honourable Judge. At present,   Ms. Kazmi is working for Justice Project Pakistan.

Ms. Kazmi has also been appointed as defence counsel on state expense in jail appeals by an Honourable Judge of the Islamabad High Court. She also leads the Women in Law Initiative’s Islamabad chapter
and has been involved with the US Department of Justice’s, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) in teaching methods and skills of research, drafting and advocacy to prosecutors.

Ms. Kazmi has a keen interest in working towards safeguarding human rights and ensuring equality of opportunity for every individual.

Mehwish Muhib Kakakhel – Women in Law KpK Chapter Lead