Natalie Gamble
Natalie Gamble is the UK's leading fertility lawyer, and a founding partner of Gamble and Ghevaert LLP.
Inspired by the lack of expert legal advice available when she built her own donor conceived family in 2001, Natalie pioneered the creation of fertility law as a legal practice area in the UK, first at law firm Lester Aldridge LLP where she worked between 2001 and 2009 and then at Gamble and Ghevaert LLP.
A prominent champion of same sex parents and fertility patients, Natalie was invited to meet Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a 10 Downing Street reception in February 2010 in recognition of her groundbreaking work. In August 2010 Natalie was also named in the Independent on Sunday's prestigious Pink List 2010 honouring the 101 most influential gay and lesbian people in Britain (she was notably the only practising lawyer named, alongside pre-eminent and high profile individuals at the top of a range of professions). Natalie was nominated for the Stonewall Hero of the Year Award in 2008; and was listed by lesbian DIVA magazine as one of Britain's 50 most influential gay women in 2009.
During her long experience as a fertility lawyer, Natalie has dealt with some of the UK's best known fertility law cases including:
- Leading High Court international surrogacy law case Re X and Y (Foreign Surrogacy) 2008, the first British case to authorise an international commercial surrogacy arrangement. Natalie and Louisa acted for the parents and were personally acknowledged by High Court judge Mr Justice Hedley for their work navigating the complex and groundbreaking legal issues involved.
- The internationally reported case of sperm donor Andy Bathie, who was pursued for maintenance by the CSA (for which Natalie was Times Lawyer of the Week in January 2008).
- The high profile embryo storage dispute case involving parents Melanie and Robert Gladwin who in September 2009 won a last minute change to the law, enabling them and others parent through surrogacy to store their embryos for an extended period.
Natalie is a member of the Board of Trustees of Infertility Network UK and works closely with all the major charities and organisations in the UK fertility sector, including Infertility Network UK, COTS, Surrogacy UK, Stonewall and the Donor Conception Network. She is a passionate defender of fertility patients from all backgrounds and hosts the Ask a Lawyer page on popular website Fertility Friends, where she is familiar to many as NatGamble.
Natalie was at the forefront of debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 during its passage through Parliament, speaking out on same sex parenting, surrogacy and embryo storage. She was interviewed repeatedly in the national press and media and was quoted as a leading authority in the Parliamentary debates (on surrogacy and during the televised ‘need for a father’ free vote debate) as well as drafting several amendments to the Bill. Natalie has also subsequently helped win changes to the law on embryo storage and international surrogacy law and has, together with Louisa, given expert legal evidence to the Department of Health and to the HFEA's Ethics and Law Advisory Committee.
Natalie Gamble is regularly interviewed on national radio and television on surrogacy, donor conception, same sex parenting, embryo storage and fertility treatment (including on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme and BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour - see our Media Coverage page). She is also regularly asked to comment on fertility law stories in the national press, including the Times, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph (see our Media Coverage page).
Natalie is also an accomplished public speaker, who is regularly invited to address national and international events. In 2008 she spoke alongside ex-HFEA Chair Baroness Deech and Bishop of Oxford Lord Richard Harries at a debate in the Houses of Parliament organised by the Progress Educational Trust. She has also spoken to the Reproductive Medicine 2009 conference and to the Royal College of Nursing's national fertility conference, and has presented at Cambridge University and to the national meetings of Surrogacy UK, the Donor Conception Network and the British Infertility Counselling Association.
Natalie writes widely on the subject of fertility law, and has published articles in leading legal publications (including Family Law, International Family Law, Family Law Journal, Solicitors’ Journal and the Review) and medical journals (including Reproductive Biomedicine). She is also a regular contributor to Bionews and to many national magazines (including Diva, Men’s Health, Eve and G3).
Natalie qualified as a solicitor after graduating from Southampton University with a first class honours degree and winning a Law Society national award for her postgraduate study.
Contact Natalie Gamble at:
natalie@gambleandghevaert.com
Tel. 0844 357 1603 (from outside the UK +44 1202 373400)
Photographs by nickiewestlakephotography.co.uk
