The founder of a groundbreaking campaign that celebrates and champions women in law has been awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List. Dana Denis-Smith, CEO of outsourced legal services provider Obelisk Support and founder of The First 100 Years and Next 100 Years campaigns has been recognised for her services to women in law.
Run by the Spark21 charity, of which she is a trustee, the campaigns aim to promote the profession’s female trailblazers, documenting their stories through video biographies as well as a book, podcast, exhibition and events such as the annual Inspirational Women in Law Awards.
Receiving her OBE will be a moment to treasure for Dana, 49, who grew up in Romania under a communist regime before coming to London on a scholarship with Reuters news agency. She initially studied history at the London School of Economics before switching to law and landing a job as a trainee with one of the City’s largest firms, Linklaters.
It was in 2010, whilst pregnant with her daughter, that Dana decided to set up on her own, driven by a desire to reverse the pattern she had witnessed across the industry of female lawyers leaving to raise a family and not coming back.
Fast-forward almost 15 years and Obelisk Support is now a multi-award-winning company with a network of more than 2,000 highly skilled and experienced legal professionals, including many part-time working mums whose lives no longer suit the long, inflexible hours that some firms still demand.
“I just felt that it was not only unfair but a huge waste of talent,” Dana said.
“These women were highly educated and intelligent and had enjoyed hugely impressive careers, yet it was like they were being penalised for choosing to start a family.
“It also struck me that, despite so much time having passed since women were allowed to practice law, there was still so much more that needed to be done to achieve equality.”
It was this sense of injustice that led Dana to launch The First 100 Years campaign in 2014, charting the stories of female legal pioneers from 1919 when the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed, paving the way for women to practice law for the first time. In 2019, to mark the centenary and as a result of the five-year campaign’s work, the Supreme Court unveiled its first piece of art featuring women in the profession including its first female president, Lady Hale.
The Next 100 Years is building on the success of the first campaign by continuing to share trailblazing stories and improve the visibility of women in the profession.
Dana, who has won numerous awards for her work and was also invited to give a TED talk about her experiences, adds: “I am absolutely thrilled to be honoured with an OBE. “I never imagined when I started the campaigns that something like this would happen. I just saw it as something that needed to be done, a wrong that should be righted.
“To be recognised for the difference I have made, by the country that I have called home for more than half my life now, means the world to me.
“It’s an honour I share with all the women whose stories we have told, and also with my daughter, Alma Constance, and husband John who have supported me every step of the way.
“I hope that this will shine a light on the campaigns and the important part I hope they will play in effecting real change for future generations of women in law.”
Obelisk Support is an award-winning legal business bringing significant change to how lawyers work.
Under the leadership of CEO, Dana Denis-Smith, Obelisk has built a talent pool of over 2,000 skilled and highly experienced legal professionals whose life demands no longer fit the traditional working model. Obelisk can help in-house teams drive change by providing access to remote and flexible legal services delivered by highly experienced lawyers, designing, advising on and resourcing tailored “Returners” programmes, and consulting with teams to understand and evolve their workplace culture.
The Next 100 Years
The Next 100 Years is the latest campaign from the team behind the First 100 Years and is dedicated to achieving equality for women in law.The campaign aims to accelerate the pace of change by encouraging collaboration across the legal profession, improving the visibility of women in law and supporting the women lawyers of the future.
The ten-year campaign is powered by Spark21, a charity founded to celebrate, inform and inspire future generations of women in the profession. It builds on the success of the First 100 Years campaign which was created to chart the journey of women in law in the first 100 years following the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, which paved the way for women to become lawyers for the first time. The five-year campaign culminated with the centenary celebrations in 2019.
The Next 100 Years continues the work of the First 100 Years, capturing the inspirational stories of today’s pioneering women lawyers, educating the public on the legacy of the legal pioneers of the past and driving the change needed to create an equal future for women in the legal profession.