We are so excited to announce an online legal clinic in collaboration with international law firm, Latham & Watkins, where you can receive free and independent guidance on the use of deed polls to change your or your child’s name.

A Deed Poll is a legal document which officially recognises someone’s change of name.  The document will include the old name and the new name and will state the intention to only use the new name. You can also change the title like ‘Miss’, ‘Mr’ and ‘Mx’ for example. This will allow you to get all your or your child’s documents like passport, bank account, medical records, changed to the new name. This won’t be enough to change the gender on official documents – that’s a different process – but it can be an important step in your or your child’s transition.

We see so many queries about who can sign the deed poll, how to do it and how to use it, so we hope that this clinic will help answer any questions you might have.

HOW IT WILL WORK

Email [email protected] with the name and age of the person who wishes to change their name and a brief description of the query. If you are under 16, you will need to attend with a parent or guardian, if you are over 16, you can attend on your own.

This personal data will be stored and accessed only by the Mermaids legal team as well as the lawyers that will assist you during the clinic that you have requested to attend for the duration of the clinic and any follow up work after. All queries will be treated as confidential, as will the fact that you, or your child wishes to attend or has attended the clinic. All information will be processed by Mermaids in accordance with our privacy policy. Any personal data processed by the lawyers that assist you will be in accordance with Latham & Watkins’ privacy notice. We will provide you with a form at the end of the session where you can anonymously feedback on your experience and consent to your testimonial being used anonymously in the future by Mermaids to advertise the clinic.

The clinic will be held on Zoom from 6 – 7pm on 28 April. You will receive a link to the event after you have signed a letter confirming your attendance.

On the night, you will be greeted by a member of the Mermaids team and then moved into a virtual break-out room so that you can discuss your questions with a lawyer from Latham & Watkins. The lawyers will endeavour to answer your questions then and there, and if not, you will be able to receive guidance after the event.