Speakers
Please note that NDOC will take an intersectional lens when looking at the research and data, however, finding individuals willing to speak on the subject is difficult. We recognize the panel is predominantly cis-gendered white women – this is a symptom of the issue at hand, not a lack of interest in speakers of different lived experiences.
DR. ANN OLIVARIUS (she/her)
Dr. Ann Olivarius is recognised for her pioneering work in representing victims of sexual violence, sexual harassment, and discrimination in both the UK and USA. She established McAllister Olivarius in the UK in 1999 and AO Advocates, a firm specialising in cases of institutional child abuse, in 2011.
Olivarius has been instrumental in securing stronger legislation in the UK against domestic violence and sexual cybercrime. Her firms have achieved landmark settlements for survivors of abuse and successfully coordinated international efforts to bring perpetrators to justice. She is one of Britain’s leading philanthropists and public speakers on women’s rights in business and academia.
Nelson Mandela, whom Ann advised personally after his retirement as president of South Africa, described her as ‘a lawyer who has advised me well and who has courageously advanced the cause of justice, and improved life opportunities, for hundreds of millions of women, blacks and disadvantaged, worldwide’.
Olivarius has been instrumental in securing stronger legislation in the UK against domestic violence and sexual cybercrime. Her firms have achieved landmark settlements for survivors of abuse and successfully coordinated international efforts to bring perpetrators to justice. She is one of Britain’s leading philanthropists and public speakers on women’s rights in business and academia.
Nelson Mandela, whom Ann advised personally after his retirement as president of South Africa, described her as ‘a lawyer who has advised me well and who has courageously advanced the cause of justice, and improved life opportunities, for hundreds of millions of women, blacks and disadvantaged, worldwide’.
DR. JULIE MACFARLANE (she/her)
Professor Julie Macfarlane is a Canadian law professor, Member of the Order of Canada, who has won many awards for her work in advocating for access to justice. In 2016, in her personal negotiations with the Anglican Church, she persuaded the Church and their insurer to end the default practice of forcing NDAs on victims of clerical abuse. Later that year, she discovered that a colleague terminated following an investigation for harassment and other misconduct was protected by an NDA that had been negotiated before his departure from the University of Windsor, and that he had been able to move to another law school who knew nothing of his history. The University continued to hide the facts in the NDA enabling the perpetrator to successfully sue her for “defamation”.
ZELDA PERKINS (she/her)
Zelda Perkins has been campaigning since 2017 when she was the first woman to break an NDA, signed decades earlier, with Harvey Weinstein. She brought the systematic abuse of NDA’s to the attention of the British Government and international press, giving evidence at two parliamentary inquiries, which have uncovered an epidemic of misuse, and pushing the England and Wales Solicitors Regulatory Authority to take disciplinary action against the lawyer who created her NDA for Weinstein. Her actions have been inspiring others, to come forward by her example. Zelda was named a Person of the Year by Time magazine in 2017 and by the Guardian in 2020.