UK Trustee Network: An interview with Nick Flynn

As part of our interview series for our Trustee Network, Taylor Root Director, Penny Parker recently spoke to Nick Flynn, Head of Legal at Avaaz about his experience as a Trustee for Trustee of Environmental Law Foundation.

What does your charity do?

I’m currently a Trustee of the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) which I’ve served for at least the last 10 years. It is a network of lawyers and law students providing pro bono legal advice to help the voice of ordinary people and communities to be heard on matters affecting the environment in which they live. You can view our current cases here, especially our involvement as an intervener in the recent Manchester Ship Canal case, where we played a key role, alongside The Good Law Project, in ending the impunity of water utilities for the nuisance their sewage discharges cause – see Law Society Gazette – “Judges Cry Foul” and Law Soc Gazette – Lawyer in the News / ELF CEO

ELF is all about participation and access to justice. It’s about using the law to ensure the views and feelings of ordinary citizens of the UK, primarily in socially and economically disadvantaged communities, on the quality of the air we all breathe, on the open spaces, wildlife, land use and waterways near our homes are heard. I’ve been privileged to meet and celebrate with people who’ve defeated ugly, pollutive developments in their own backyards because of ELF’s legal advice.  As well as law students and junior lawyers who are thrilled to have cut their teeth on their first real advice on real world problems (all appropriately supervised!). It’s a joy to witness that and help to make it happen.

What motivated you to become a Trustee of this not-for-profit organisation?

I vividly remember as a child growing up in North Wales wondering what Friends of the Earth was. Envelopes of great messaging kept arriving at the house like something out of Harry Potter! It seemed to be common sense to be a ‘friend of the earth’ but it was also a time when the destruction of the Amazon was being reported on the TV news in units of ‘Wales’ per year. The notion that an area of wild, forest the size of the country I lived in was being chopped down annually utterly horrified me. The problem has only got worse since then, which will explain why I was inspired to become an environmental lawyer – even if that was in the city which posed some serious dilemmas. Combine all that with a deep interest in power, who wields it and who doesn’t and why, and you have the reason why I left the city 10 years ago to join a campaign group, Avaaz.  I now get to do things like pursue Bolsonaro for crimes against humanity in the Amazon by inviting the ICC to open an investigation. My involvement in ELF is just the same). ELF is all about challenging the concentration of power in the hands of elites that is causing the planetary climate and environmental emergency we’re all living in and putting power back into the hands of ordinary people at a domestic and local UK level

In what ways do you see your role as a Trustee complementing your professional responsibilities as Head of Legal?

It’s a leadership role, requiring me to help to define a vision for where ELF is going and then inspire the confidence, trust and accountability necessary to get there and have genuine impact.  That also happens to be my day-job in a campaign organisation with a global reach and a much broader reach and agenda. I find ELF’s domestic UK victories in communities up and down the land to be just as satisfying as those in the global battles and that the connection to impact in communities I know and understand keeps my work grounded and very real

What do you perceive as the primary benefits of serving as a Trustee of a not-for-profit organisation from a personal and professional standpoint?

It’s very simple. If you want to be a leader and to have impact, you have to get out there and do it, take risks and embrace triumph and disaster just the same.  I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to do that while in private practice in the city at a time when I was, frankly, struggling in my career with partnership prospects receding. Serving the community and helping my brilliant colleagues do the same, was exactly what opened the door for me to switch to my current role. It has been transformational for me personally and professionally.

How do you balance your duties as a Trustee with your other professional commitments?

I focus pretty ruthlessly on what’s important personally and professionally and cut the rest. I also try to be kind to myself and to believe that my best is good enough. I don’t try to be perfect and I prioritise my family and work life balance. Trusteeship helps with that by broadening your perspective – petty office politics often pale into insignificance compared to what the people we are supporting   face. Even so, I’ve had my struggles and suffered a massive burnout last year which I’ve now bounced back better than ever from, so there are no guarantees. Especially, for lawyers whose benchmark for healthy and normal may be set a little off.

Can you provide examples of how your involvement as a Trustee has positively impacted the organisation or its stakeholders?

I’m good at speaking uncomfortable truths in ways that land powerfully but softly enough to be tolerated. I’ve named a few elephants in the room in my time at ELF and that, for example, has helped it adopt a less risk averse approach to participation in cases and collaborations. This is a three pipe, possibly five beer story, but it helped overcome pockets of board resistance to ELF taking on the Manchester Ship Canal case alongside the Good Law Project where we played a part in winning an end to the impunity of water utilities for public nuisance of their sewage discharges. Our grassroots support for communities enabled us to provide evidence of sewage impacts up and down the UK and show the systemic nature of the utility undertakers’ failures.

How do you stay informed about the legal and regulatory landscape relevant to the not-for-profit sector in your capacity as a Trustee?

I cover a lot of ground in my day job which gives me a lot of breadth of expertise. If and when I need to go deep, I have no shame in starting with google, and now increasingly ChatGPT and Claude, taking it (with a pinch of salt) from there, begging or buying in the external advice I need. There’s something like 15000 pages of law published every year in the UK and, globally, there’s more content published annually now than in the entire history of humanity prior to the internet. There’s no point trying to keep up with the stream. I’d rather be a fisherman standing in the flow waiting patiently for my fish to come to me.

What advice would you give to other General Counsel considering becoming a Trustee of a not-for-profit organisation?

If you’re seeking purpose and connection and are interested in your fellow man and woman and your community, then do this. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity or ‘fit’ to emerge, be curious and look around. Take the opportunities that do come along without fear of it being messy or it failing, it may well do in the end. Don’t fret too much about that, show up in your community and you’ll have adventures with plenty of highs and lows, drama and intrigue along the way – just as it’s supposed to be.

If you are interested in a Trustee role or are looking to hire a Trustee position, please get in touch with Sarah Ingwersen to find out more.

If you would like to join our Trustee network, find out more here. 

We want to reiterate that this is not a paid service and forms part of our referral programme, so please do not hesitate to get in touch.