Sue Willman is an Assistant Director and Supervising solicitor in King’s Legal Clinic where she is developing the human rights and environmental law clinic. She is also a senior consultant at public interest legal aid firm Deighton Pierce Glynn, top-ranked in the Chambers and Legal 500 legal directories for both Administrative/Public Law and Civil Liberties/Human Rights. A solicitor since 1996, she specialises in public law, particularly strategic litigation on behalf of migrants, and more recently environmental and international human rights. She is a member of the Climate Law and Governance Centre at King’s. 

Sue Willman joined King’s Legal Clinic in 2020 as Assistant Director and Supervising solicitor, developing legal interventions on climate justice, linked to the Clinic’s climate justice pledge. She is also a senior consultant at public interest firm Deighton Pierce Glynn specialising in public law, including the intersecting fields of human rights and the environment.

In the UK, Sue has acted in judicial reviews to challenge decisions to build incinerators in the UK, including a successful challenge to a proposed £300m biomass plant which would have burned imported wood for energy. Sue collaborates with the Environmental Law Foundation which aims to provide access to justice for communities and individuals on environmental issues. One such case is on behalf of the London Waterkeeper investigating legal challenges to the pollution of local rivers. Sue has an interest in the Wild Law movement and the development of the rights of nature.

Sue has experience in the impact of multinational extractive companies in Africa and Latin America. In 2015, she issued a civil claim against BP and other oil companies on behalf of a Colombian trade unionist who had been kidnapped and tortured by paramilitaries linked to the Colombian army which had received payments from BP for equipment. Sue has worked to support communities affected by oil exploration in Colombia, establishing the Oiljustice Project with War on Want in the UK and the NGO COS-PACC in Colombia. Sue is a trustee of the London Mining Network, which conducts research and advocacy on the impact of mining on human rights and the environment and sustainable development, working closely with mining-affected communities, especially indigenous people. She has an LLM in International Legal Studies from Georgetown University.