Spotlight on ... International arbitrator and mediator Eunice Shang-Simpson

Arbitral Insights

Gautam Bhattacharyya welcomes Eunice Shang-Simpson (arbitrator, mediator, and lecturer-practitioner) to discuss her career journey, including key roles as a prosecutor, policy advisor, and practitioner. They explore her career highlights, transformational moments, and inspirations, before discussing the challenges and opportunities for improving parity and access in the legal profession, and how the industry can evolve to support future legal professionals.

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Transcript:

Intro: Hello and welcome to Arbitral Insights, a podcast series brought to you by our International Arbitration Practice lawyers here at Reed Smith. I'm Peter Rosher, Global Head of Reed Smith's International Arbitration Practice. I hope you enjoy the industry commentary, insights and anecdotes we share with you in the course of this series, wherever in the world you are. If you have any questions about any of the topics discussed, please do contact our speakers. And with that, let's get started.

Gautam: Hello everyone and welcome back to our latest edition of our Spotlight on Arbitral Insights podcast series and I'm delighted to have with us today as my guest the fabulous Eunice Shang-Simpson. Hello Eunice.

Eunice: Hello Gautam, thank you very much for that.

Gautam: It's really good to see you and I'm going to introduce you like I always do and in these things my challenge with introducing you, is to try to keep it to a manageable amount because you're such an illustrious person. But I'm going to try and do this as summarily as I can. So for our listeners, Eunice, apart from being a great friend, is an international arbitrator, mediator, and speaker. Eunice was formerly a council member of the Law Society of England and Wales. She is currently a lecturer practitioner at Canterbury Christ Church University in England and has recently achieved her PhD. Many congratulations again on that, Eunice. A superb achievement. And we'll touch upon your PhD thesis in the course of our podcast. She focuses in terms of her practice in international trade and investment arbitration, including investor state dispute resolution. Eunice is a member of the Ghana Bar, as well as being a solicitor advocate here in England and Wales. And she truly is, as I said in the course of my introduction a while ago, very illustrious. She also has experience of being a Crown Prosecutor and advising on policy. She, as I mentioned, is also an academic and we'll touch upon that in the course of our podcast. One other thing, and the great thing about doing these podcasts is we get constant updates. And just on this morning of this podcast, just before we were about to record this, I noted the wonderful news that Eunice has been made a Freeman, but I'd like to say a Freewoman or a free person of the Worshipful Company of Arbitrators. And that was further to a ceremony last week in London at the Mansion House that's a really wonderful accolade Eunice and that really is it's just so well deserved. I saw the photographs and uh and you know and I must say your outfit was absolutely stunning I've got to tell you, you wore traditional clothes. Absolutely you were looking wonderful I've got to tell you. So thanks again for being on and I'm much looking forward to our podcast, Eunice.

Eunice: Thank you, Gautam. That's amazing. Thank you for that introduction. It's such an honor. Thank you very much for inviting me.

Gautam: No, thank you. Now, let's start with how you found law or how law found you. So why don't you tell our listeners what first drew you to the law?

Eunice: Well, I've always been insatiably curious, I must say, since I was a child, always asking why, why not, and stuff like that. I'm the eldest of three with two younger brothers. I grew up with a close family and spent lots of holidays at my grandparents' home in Ghana in Cape Coast with several cousins. And I always seemed to be the one prepared to negotiate, you know, later bedtime hours, extra treats for everyone. Why not this trip? Why not that trip? So after a while, the grown-up started to say, well, I bet she'll be a lawyer. She's always arguing. And it kind of became a backdrop to my thinking without my being conscious of it, actually. The only lawyer I knew growing up was my grand-uncle, lawyer Sakiskek, who was a lawyer and a politician in Ghana. He was always very encouraging and supportive of me. So I guess I wanted to be like him when I grew up. And that's how it all started.

Gautam: That's amazing. Thank you. you and you know I’ve got to tell you you know looking back to when i was a student many years ago it just reminds me one of my most impactful lecturers that I ever had was a lawyer who also became a QC as it then was here but who was from Ghana and he was a lawyer too his name was Frank Panford and and Frank he taught us well he taught me the law taught but he also taught conflicts of law. And he was a brilliant legal mind. And I remember as a much younger man in my teens, this is back in my late teens when he was teaching me, I just remember how impactful he was. And so that just came to mind. I mean, it just shows these podcasts are not scripted, they flow. But look, thank you for that. And so in the course of your wonderful career so far, who who have been your career mentors and your biggest inspirations?

Eunice: Oh my gosh so many because where do I start? Shout out so I warn you there's so many and I've been incredibly incredibly fortunate in having so many mentors and inspirational people in my life my career I must say so first of all I shout out to Willaim Fugar who's the founding member, Fugo & Co. in Ghana, my first ever boss straight out of law school. And then also Elizabeth Howe, who was my first Chief Crown Prosecutor, who’s now a dear friend. Mike Kennedy, who was president of Eurojust when I was working at our European and International Policy Division, CPS headquarters in London. And Lord Peter Goldsmith KC, who we used to brief on policy matters when I worked at EID in London, when he was Attorney General. He was hugely inspirational. He managed to understand our brief so quickly and get to the bottom of it you know when you brief somebody and they just cut straight to the chase and you think oh my gosh he totally got this and he's been on a flight from the U.S. when we sent that by email I'm thinking he's actually taken all this on board so does he not sleep you know it was that kind of inspirational person. And then also the first chair of my supervisory team Professor Chris, Chris Beighton, he believed in me from the very first time I spoke to him about my PhD topic. We were on a panel in Arusha in Tanzania and he asked me, what are you doing? And I said, well, I just finished my LLM and I'm thinking of doing my PhD, asking my topic. And he's been really inspirational to me. Also the late Stephen Denyer, who was Director of Strategic Relationships at the Law Society, another hugely inspirational person in my role as Chair of the International National Committee and Chair of the Arbitration Working Group for the Law Society, it was always very encouraging to me. And most recently, my Dean and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Canterbury Christ Church, Professor Mohamed Abdel-Maguid. He's been incredibly supportive and inspirational in the short year that he's been my boss. So yeah, quite a few people. Each of them has definitely, in their own way, been an inspiration and also been a mentor. kind of, you know, when people... Sometimes I describe this to people as when you think there's a wall and actually there's a door, you don't even know there's a door that needs to be opened and people are there to open that door. I've just been incredibly, incredibly fortunate and I'm so thankful for that.

Gautam: Well, that's an incredible list in itself. And I completely agree with you, Eunice, that we're all the product of people who've been there for us, who've supported us and been generous with their time, their mentorship, their knowledge, and who've just believed in us. And I liked what you just said a moment ago, that you might be there and you might think there's a wall, but actually there's not a wall, there's only a door. And that's a very nice way of putting it. It's very good. That in itself would be something that I'm sure our listeners will take as one of the nuggets from this podcast.

Eunice: I hope so.

Gautam: Well, they will definitely. Now, one of the things I mentioned in my introduction is that you are an arbitrator as well as being an arbitration practitioner. So what, first of all, got you interested in the field of arbitration?

Eunice: Well, that's another interesting story. So after I left the CPS, I applied to study international law and international relations at the University of Kent. Now, a couple of weeks into the term, I was informed that the international relations aspect of the course that I'd started was no longer available. There had been a mix-up of some sort in the curriculum, and I was offered international commercial law. I think about this, I'd been doing criminal practice all my life, and I had no idea, except College of Law, Belford back in the day, about international commercial law. I was not happy. But there seemed to be no other choice, so reluctantly I agreed. And one of my modules was WTO law. Shout out to Professor Donatella Alessandrini. Who was my lecturer then. And another module was international arbitration, taught by Professor Gwengo Duntun. It was he who suggested to me that I seemed to have an aptitude for the subject. So he suggested that I contact the Charter Institute of Arbitrators, become a student member, and then find out if I could be offered some exemptions on the membership route due to my previous working experience. So I thought, okay, why not just listen to him? So I did, and the rest is history, as they say. For another shout-out, I must go to Jonathan Wood, who before he was president of the Charter Institute of Arbitrators, took part in what they called a Meet the Officers webinar. This was during lockdown, and I attended that. While I was listening to them, I realized from his introduction that his career had started as a criminal defense lawyer, highlighted by a successful acquittal for a mother charged with murder. So I reached out to him via email because I'd never come across anyone who had made a successful transition from criminal practice to an arbitration practice. He was also very gracious and very encouraging, and he remains so today. In fact, he graciously agreed to chair a Vis Moot-style workshop for my students on the 1st of May, which was a great success. So here am I, from arbitrator to prosecutor. That's how I got interested in arbitration.

Gautam: Well, that in itself is an inspiring story. It just shows the doors can open and you can move through the doors just because you start out as a prosecutor doing criminal law doesn't mean you can't then get involved as you are in investor state arbitration on the one hand. So again, that's another, I'm sure will be another source of great inspiration to many people listening to this podcast.

Eunice: Thank you.

Gautam: And, you know, I was talking about your, you know, some of your career highlights. And obviously, you go from prosecutor, you've advised on policy, you become a practitioner, you're an academic, and we'll come to your academia in a short while in this podcast. But just in terms of some of, if you were to step back in just a nice, humble way, I'm not asking you to sort of big yourself up, because I know it's always hard for people to big themselves up. But just tell us some of your, in the course of your career, some of the highlights that if you were to look back in the course of what you've done, some of the highlights or some of those transformational moments in your career. I mean, that would be great if you could do that please.

Eunice: So, for so many, I'll just talk about, I think I'll just talk about, obviously, when I started, obviously, you don't do this, but I started with Fugo & Co. in Ghana. A firm in Accra and my boss there, well you forget, was really, really inspirational. And I'd just come out of law school, but it just underlined to me that I really wanted to do this job and I really wanted to be a great lawyer like he was. So for me, that was a great highlight for me to understand that actually I was on the right path. But I would say, I guess highlight I'd say, is when I started doing cross-border crime work. I moved to our headquarters in London, at that time it was at Lightgate Hill, and doing European International Division, doing policy work. It was really interesting to be able to work with our colleagues in Europe, our fellow prosecutors, fellow police officers. And then moving on from that, I went to Eurojust. I applied for a position as a seconded national expert to the UK desk at Eurojust, that's representing the UK in mutual legal assistance negotiations with other member states. Taking part in joint investigation teams for cross-border investigations. So we would form a joint investigation team if we needed, if there was a particular case which needed basically joint investigation. So, for example, we had one where we had to have a team from the Czech Republic and a team, our team as well from the UK to deal with a matter that was there was a forger in the czech republic was forging very high quality passports and sending them all around so we had to have a big cross-border meeting at Eurojust where other members from member states arrived at, discussed the matter decided how best to proceed with the investigation how best to actually get the information we needed and the evidence we needed so our colleagues in the Czech Republic could actually do the prosecution. And it was things like that, that for me, it's just been able to work with so many brilliant minds from across the UK. And when we finally managed to have a successful arrest, both in the UK and the Czech Republic. At the same time, we had to go to the Czech Republic, had a big press conference, and it was all in Czech being translated. I said to the National Department at the time, I said, Pavel, what are they saying? He said, don't worry, Eunice, I'm listening. They're saying the right things. They're saying all the correct things that happened. But it's things like that, working with really, truly amazing people across the globe. It's just been brilliant, yeah.

Gautam: Excellent. Thank you. Now, let's turn to your life in academia, because as I said, you recently achieved your PhD. So you're now Dr. Eunice Shang-Simpson, yet another badge that you can wear on your lapel. And, you know, just tell us a little bit about your PhD. So and what your thesis was about, and why you chose that thesis. Also you know I mean, I’ve only done a bachelor's and a master's…

Eunice: Only? That’s hardly only.

Gautam: Well yeah but the thought of doing a PhD and putting myself through that torture somehow although it is appealing on the one hand because I do because love the study of the law as we all practitioners do but the thought of spending a minimum of three years or so studying and then and doing a thesis and having that discipline scares me. So what inspired you to do that? And why did you choose your thesis?

Eunice: Well, you see what inspired me to do that? It probably seemed a good idea at the time, is all I can say to start this. But it was a great discipline, I must admit. I started doing it full-time. The idea was because when I left the CPAs, I said I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. But I had always, in the back of my mind, wanted to do a master's. And I thought, well, this is the time now I've got more time on my hands. Why don't I do that? I'd just applied, went and did my master's at the University of Kent. And it was after that that I got, I suppose, the academia bug bit me, shall we say. And I had an idea for a PhD thesis that I thought, do I really want to go ahead with this? So I thought I'd do that full time. And that was the idea. I'll just do it full time, get cracking for the discipline for three and a half years or so. When I started doing the PhD at Canterbury Christ Church, I then got offered a full-time role there, a position there. I started in 2019 in October, got offered a full-time role there. So as a result of that, the PhD was then made into a part-time PhD because obviously I was teaching full-time as a lecturer practitioner there. And so it's taken me nearly five years to do that. So, yes, that is a huge discipline. And what I'd say to anybody interested in doing this is, first of all, please choose something that you're passionate about, something that you're really interested in. My topic was a legal analysis of the impact of Ghana's international investment agreement on regulatory autonomy, potential solutions, basically in a nutshell. shelf. So I was looking at regulatory autonomy of host states, the impact international investment agreements that they had signed, usually bilateral investment agreements, had on their regulatory autonomy. And why did I choose that? So again, talking about meandering careers and doors opening and pathways that you did not anticipate. I did, when I started, I decided that I wanted to become an arbitrator. I did a period of internship at UNCITRAL in Vienna at a time when the UNCITRAL Working Group 3, which was tasked by the commission in 2017 with the mandate to work on the possible reform of investor states, dispute supplement ISDS, was starting out. And I had the opportunity to go along to New York to listen to the deliberations of Working Group 3, the UN there, which was a great experience in itself. And that got me interested in the problems that abound in the ISDS universe. It's not all bad by any stretch of the imagination, but there are problems, which is why Working Group 3 is in place looking at how best to resolve these and that got me really interested in okay is there another way is there possibly another way of resolving these or getting to the bottom of these problems and my view was that it's better to start at the negotiating table to ensure that there are provisions that are fair to both parties not provisions whose sole aim is the protection of investors investments which is how it all started 50 plus years ago and that's it's not changed much but it is changing now but anyway that was my my journey and that's what I was interested in and yes that's what my PhD was about.

Gautam: Well, very well done. It's a it's a wonderful accolade and you know again you were clearly passionate about that subject as you said if someone wants to do this thing to choose something that they're passionate about because it's a big commitment to do and hopefully now are there plans to publish your thesis as a book?

Eunice: Well funny you should say that so my examiners graciously suggested after first after they put me out of my misery when I came back because what obviously at viva they grill you for an hour and a half something something like that, then you go away and have a cup of coffee or whatever you need to do to calm yourself down. Then they deliberate and then they call you back. So when they called me back, first thing they did was very graciously put me out of my misery by announcing that I had actually passed viva. And then they suggested that they would be happy to provide any guidance and assistance if I wanted to publish my work. So once I've completed my minor corrections, I will definitely take them up on their offer. And then we'll see where that leads.

Gautam: No, you should definitely do that. I really think you should. You know, I'm again, and again, this again shows this is completely unscripted because I never script these podcasts. Another one of my excellent lecturers that I had a big impact on me, and this time on my master's, was Dr. Fidelis Oditah KC, who practices from 3 to 4 South Square in London. A wonderful legal mind and he was one of my lecturers on my master's and he did his PhD thesis which was then published as a book and was one of the core textbooks on our course. And it's called and I still remember the name Legal Aspects of Receivables Financing, and Fidelis is a incredible -

Eunice: To remember the name it must have made an impact on you!

Gautam: Oh yeah yeah no and it's It's still such an influential book, but I still remember the clarity of thought and how learned he was in speaking and in writing. It was a big influence. And as a younger man, you know, when you see people like that, who are your teachers, who are literally your teachers. You learn a lot and you try to emulate them. So I'd like to think that many people will emulate you as a consequence of your publication. So I look forward to seeing the book in due course once you've made those corrections, and I'm sure there'll only be about two things you change. I look forward to seeing that. So now, what's next for you in terms of academia? Because you're obviously a lecturer, you've done your PhD. How do you now want to take forward your life in academia with your life as an arbitrator and as a practitioner?

Eunice: Well, yes, good question. Thank you for that question. Obviously, I am a lecturer practitioner at the moment. My other hat actually in academia is, I mentioned my dean who's been very inspirational. A year ago, I applied for the referred to as an 0.4, which is a part-time role within the university. So now I'm part-time as a lecturer and part-time as faculty strategic lead for equity and inclusion. So I've been working very hard with my colleagues on the DEI team here to ensure that we're really not just saying it, but we're in reality a proper exemplar for equity and inclusion in the higher education space in my role, in that role as faculty strategically for equity and inclusion. And to work to make sure that our students, both our home students and our international students, all have a really positive experience here and feel that they belong in an environment where they're fully supported to be actually the best that they can be in terms of not just their grades, but also in terms of preparing them for their future careers. So, for example, as part of my lecturer practitioner role last year, we set up a series of internal Vis Moot competitions here at the university and the team that actually won. I'm so proud of them because they were first year students at the time and they actually won the competition. So we took them to the Vis Moot in Vienna this year. And that's the kind of thing that I want to go ahead to do more of, to bring my practitioner experience to bear on my lecture experience. And then it's my equity and inclusion strategic lead role as well. So that's short term. That's what academia has for me.

Gautam: That's fabulous. And this, again, leads beautifully. Again, it's completely unscripted how nicely you said what you said, because it leads into what I was going to ask next. One of the things that I know you and I share a great passion for is better and greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. You and I first came across each other in that context in the scope of a research project that you and I were both being interviewed for. And I came away from that session much enlightened, I've got to tell you, by speaking to everyone.

Eunice: Nice to know. I forgot to ask you that.

Gautam: No, it was incredible. No, I think that was a great experience for us all, because there's no monopoly on wisdom. And we all learn from each other. So, you know, your role at Canterbury Christ Church University, as you mentioned, will involve achieving greater and better equity, inclusion, diversity for students, both home students and foreign students. But one of the things that's always interesting to me is how we achieve that. Now, it's clearly important that people can see. People like you leading from the front, right? Because it means a lot when someone sees someone and they think, wow, I want to be like them. But just tell us just a few things in summary. I mean, I know time is against us, but just a few things that you think will be critical for you in your role to achieve that greater diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Eunice: With regards to arbitration and equity and inclusion in the arbitration field, I think what we need to do is not to be afraid to question the status quo. What I mean by that is that not to be afraid of setting, for example, meaningful targets and holding ourselves accountable for achieving those targets. So the reason why I'm saying this is very recently, yesterday, actually, as chair of the International Committee of the Law Society, I was conducting interviews for new members for our committee yesterday. And I was very impressed by a firm which had set definite targets for a certain percentage of female partners in their practice. They achieved that before the target date. So they reviewed it and they set an even more ambitious target to be reached by 2029 with transparency. And I think that's really important so they could be held accountable. And another prospective candidate described his approach to DEI by saying that we're all diverse and what makes the difference is inclusion, that it's important to receive an invitation to the party, yes, but are we allowed to sit down and eat? And are we allowed to dance at the party? Or does the invitation come with a veiled caveat of behave in a certain way? So I think it's It's important that we make our students, when we talk about the university, and also arbitrators of all backgrounds feel included, feel that they belong at the table and feel that literally there is a space for them at the table. I also think we need to get behind initiatives like Amanda Lee’s Women in Arbitration, where she highlights achievements by women in arbitration every Friday. If you don't follow it, you should. It's really, really impressive. And also Professor Emilia Onyema at SOAS, she has started AFAS, which is Arbitration Fund for African Students. Is an organization that was started by Professor Onyema and myself and a few others. As we're all trustees of this organization. And we have an ambitious program with the AFAS-ADR Student Connect Initiative, where we aim to reach out to provide basic ADR training to high school students and also university students in African countries. We did the very first one in Ghana earlier on in the year, this is April. And then in Uganda, one of my colleagues did that. We're going to be doing two other African countries this year. But the whole idea is to get African students at a very basic level, the high school level, interested in arbitration, then be able to connect them with the university students and connect them with practitioners in their jurisdiction and eventually connect them with practitioners outside their jurisdiction. To have almost like a pipeline of arbitrators who know from the outset that they have the support of practitioners in the field and that there's a pathway for them. So there isn't this feeling of, well, perhaps I'm not going to be able to progress in my career but actually to know that they will be supported throughout their career. So those are the initiatives that I think we should be seriously looking at when we're talking about equity and inclusion in arbitration.

Gautam: Yeah, brilliant. And it's all wonderful. And thank you for sharing those great thoughts with us. Alas, time has caught up with us, but we always end these podcasts, because it's very popular with our listeners, with some more lighthearted questions. And you will be no exception, because it's always nice to ask some of these more lighthearted questions of fabulous guests like yourself. So let me ask you two questions, which are just brief questions, and you can just give your thoughts on this. So most of us have a favorite album that we love, and it's often difficult, because I know I've got but more than one, but is there a favorite album of yours that you enjoy listening to, and why is it your favorite album?

Eunice: Okay, this is going to be a bit sad, but I have a favorite album. Which is Stephan Mokius' Tales of Solace. And he's actually brought out a very new album called Legends, Myths and Lavender Fields recently in the past month. But I love this because that was my constant backdrop in the library when I was studying. And he has a lot of music. He is a piano player and he's an exquisite piano player. And his music has been a backdrop to a lot of my studies. So for me, those are definitely his Tales of Solace and another one, Le Jardin de Monsieur Monet. And also this new one, which I'm going to be listening to when I'm not studying.

Gautam: Well, that sounds good. And you can note and give him a shout out in the preface to your book, your thesis, that his music helped you and stuff. And then last question is this. Have you got a favorite travel spot that you love to go out. By yourself or with your family?

Eunice: So my favorite travel spot of all time that I love to go is a little place or just a little place up in the lake district called Underscar don't know most people have never heard of it but it's our best kept secret it's just amazing because it's you can just be there by yourself or with family it's my little bolt hole I just love time there I usually go there in January because I have a timeshare there. And people say, why did you go to the Lake District in January? Well, I happen to love the snow. I'm crazy like that. I love walking in all kinds of weather. People, we all say there's nothing like bad weather. It's just badly dressed people. So my aim is next time I go there, I'm going to definitely get to the top of Skiddaw because I've been trying to get to the top of Skiddaw and I haven't succeeded. So that's my favorite place under Underscar Lake.

Gautam: Brilliant. And you know that's now no longer a well-kept secret which is great right. But look thank you very much Eunice it's been a real genuinely a huge pleasure to do this podcast with you I've admired your achievements for a long time and I just love to be able to share your story with our listeners and you've done that wonderfully in the course of this podcast so thank you very much and I look forward to seeing you in person very soon thank

Eunice: Thank you so much, Gautam. It's been such an honor to be interviewed on your podcast. Thank you for inviting me. And thank you so much.

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