Interview with Jacqui Rhule-Dagher, Solicitor at Hogan Lovells and Founder of Legally Lesbians

By Christianah Omobosola Babajide. 

Reading time: five minutes 

Today, I’m thrilled to be in conversation with Jacqui Rhule-Dagher (JRD), a litigation lawyer at Hogan Lovells International LLP, committed to LGBTQIA inclusion and raising awareness surrounding intersectionality. She serves on the Hogan Lovells UK Pride Network Steering Committee as the firm’s only Black out lesbian lawyer, advocating for an intersectional approach to DEI.

Additionally, Jacqui is one of just 16 lawyers from England and Wales to sit on The Law Society’s LGBTQ+ Solicitors Network Steering Committee. In April 2023, she founded Legally Lesbians. This is an initiative which involves lesbians in the legal industry/in-house lawyers writing about their careers and reflecting on the importance of lesbian visibility. Legally Lesbians has profiled 50 lesbians so far.

COB: Can you start by telling us a bit about yourself and your background.

JRD: My name is Jacqui Rhule-Dagher and my pronouns are she/her. I am an associate in the complex commercial litigation team at Hogan Lovells. I advise clients on a range of legal issues including fraud, misrepresentation and contractual disputes. Prior to this, I spent 18 months working at a US firm and I trained at Clifford Chance.

I am also a writer (I have  featured in The Lawyer, Thomson Reuters and the Metro); and an LGBTQIA advocate. In 2023, during Lesbian Visibility Week, I founded Legally Lesbians. This initiative involves lesbians in the legal industry/in-house lawyers writing about their careers and reflecting on the importance of lesbian visibility.

COB: What inspired you to establish Legally Lesbians?

JRD: When I first entered the legal industry, I was deep in the closet. My Monday morning routine consisted of rehearsing answers on the tube to the much-dreaded question: “What did you do at the weekend?” I was terrified of outing myself if I revealed too much. One day, I slipped up and I told a colleague that I had been to the Dalston Superstore (a well-known LGBTQIA club), imagine my relief when they thought that I was a DIY enthusiast! I can laugh about these experiences now, but at the time they were exhausting, frightening, isolating and limiting. I founded Legally Lesbians because I don’t want anyone else to go through similar experiences.

Visibility is vital! If you don’t see people like you, you can start to think that you’re the odd one out, and that there is something wrong with you. I want people to see that you can be an out lesbian and have a successful career in the legal industry

COB: What challenges have you faced as a solicitor?

JRD: I think that the biggest challenge (and this is not confined to a specific law firm, btw) is a lack of understanding surrounding intersectionality. The term intersectionality was coined by an American academic, Kimberlé Crenshaw, in 1989. Intersectionality describes how characteristics such as class, gender, race and other personal characteristics combine, overlap and ‘intersect’ with one another. When organisations fail to take an intersectional approach, but rather a characteristic by characteristic approach, what they’re effectively asking people to do is to leave parts of themselves behind. This erasure is likely to exacerbate the feelings of isolation and marginalisation experienced by those with multiple intersecting identities.

COB: What are the most significant challenges facing LGBTQIA individuals in the legal profession today?

JRD: A lack of understanding surrounding intersectionality impacts LGBTQIA individuals too. Also, the absence of visible role models, in particular female role models, is another significant challenge. A 2022 study, by the LGBTQIA charity ‘Just Like Us’ found that more than two thirds (68%) of lesbians delayed coming out due to the harmful stereotypes about lesbians. I am very lucky that Hogan Lovells has two out lesbian partners, but I recognise that this an exception and not the norm, in the City.

Another issue facing LGBTQIA individuals is Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) operating in silos. Most firms have an ERG for gender, one for LGBTQIA staff and another for race and ethnicity. Yet what happens to people who straddle all three groups? I am not suggesting that there should be ERGs for every single intersecting identity, that would be unworkable. Whenever possible, however, ERGs should collaborate in order to ensure that intersectionality is at the forefront of their diversity, equity and inclusion objectives.

COB: How does Legally Lesbians help address these challenges?

JRD: Legally Lesbians is a genuinely diverse and inclusive initiative. Happily, 50 lesbians in the legal industry/ in-house lawyers have taken part in the initiative. I am fortunate to have had people who have made an enormous impact to the legal industry, both here and overseas, participate in Legally Lesbians. Dr Keina Yoshida, who took part in Legally Lesbians 2023, is one such individual. She was one of the lawyers who successfully litigated the Rosanna Flamer-Caldera v Sri Lanka case before the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This was the first international human rights case to establish that criminalising lesbian relationships is a human rights violation.

In 2024, Judge Dr Victoria McCloud, the UK’s first trans judge, took part in Legally Lesbians . These individuals, and everyone else who has taken part in the initiative, remind people that there is no one way to be a lesbian in the legal industry.

COB: What steps can be taken to improve this visibility?

JRD: If people trust that their organisation is a psychologically safe space; with well-drafted and regularly reviewed policies and procedures; and ERGs which are supported by the firm’s leaders; while having the benefit of active allies, then they are likely to have the confidence and requisite support to be visibly out.

Finally, if anyone reading this is in two minds about being more visible in their organisation, I would like to remind them of the words of the late and great Maya Angelou who said: “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”

Quick fire questions…

COB: Name one thing you can’t leave the house without.

JRD: Sunglasses. The optimist in me hopes  there will be a need for them. The realist in me is typically disappointed.

COB: Coffee or tea?

JRD: Coffee. Specifically, Rohan Marley’s (son of Bob) brand of coffee.

COB: Fave book?

JRD: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.

COB: Cats or dogs?

JRD: Dogs.

COB: Name one interesting fact about you.

JRD: I am ordained as a minister in the state of Florida.