Katrina Crossley

The rule of law is meaningless unless lawyers have access to the information resources they need. Access to justice cannot be achieved without access to information. Landfill is not the right place for valuable legal textbooks that can help defend rights, win cases and develop laws. My job is to take printed resources that are no longer needed and give them to lawyers across the world. I want to see an equitable distribution of legal resources where no valuable legal text is wasted. Online is the future, but books remain irresistible and essential. As a lawyer and legal publisher at LexisNexis, I created legal products, both in print and online, and that taught me the value of expert legal writing and how vital it is for the development of a fair and robust legal system. When I worked on the creation of the RELX SDG Resource Centre to support the UN's 17 SDGs, the importance of open access to information that is trusted, curated and peer reviewed was my guiding principle. My career-long involvement with corporate responsibility, including the rule of law, pro bono, and diversity and inclusion, drives my approach to what I do and the networks I have created. I am lucky to have had the chance to travel widely across the world, especially to Nepal where meeting lawyers and law librarians was truly inspiring. Books feature heavily at home, particularly travel writing, nature, history, science and French. Playing the piano and trying to get better are a constant.