Emily Lawton
EUSS Legal Policy Officer
About Emily Lawton
Emily joined Wilsons in May 2025 as the EUSS Legal Policy Officer, where she works on the S.A.F.E. Project.
Before joining Wilsons, she worked in The Hague for a civil society organisation , contributing to EU and UN level projects on human rights and emerging digital policy. She has also worked as a caseworker at Medical Justice , supporting people in immigration detention by coordinating medico-legal reports and ensuring access to healthcare and legal support.
Emily graduated from the University of Amsterdam in 2018 with first-class honours in Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics. She completed her master’s in International Migration and Refugee Law in 2024, graduating with a first-class degree. During her LLM she contributed to an expert opinion on migrants protest rights for the ECtHR through the Migration Law Clinic. Her bachelor’s thesis examined the privatisation of immigration detention and its links with colonialism, while her master’s thesis developed a legal framework for analysing and comparing global externalisation policies and migrant pushbacks. In 2025, she passed the SQE1.
Emily has volunteered with migrants for over ten years, including at the Kirklees Women’s Centre , assisting clients at a Leeds based immigration firm, and supporting undocumented people in Amsterdam .
Interests: travel, cycling, reading, and cooking.