Ruo is a bilingual, magic circle trained charities and social enterprise solicitor. Having worked and volunteered at over 10 charities across the UK, she has first-hand experience and understanding of the governance, management and commercial issues that face these organisations. Ruo is currently serving a three-year term as a director of the Charity Law Association, having been elected by industry peers in June 2023.

Ruo has advised a plethora of charitable trusts, CIOs, charitable companies, chartered bodies, CICs, B Corporations, exempt and excepted charities and parochial church councils. She also provides advice to the trustees and senior managers that run such organisations. Ruo also has experience assisting her clients with restructuring, creating, and dissolving new social enterprises and working on mergers. Ruo enjoys getting to know her clients and building meaningful and long-term relationships and offering practical and strategic advice to support them. Many of the clients she has advised appreciate her personable nature, patience, and her ability to navigate and provide pragmatic and empathic advice on some complex governance and regulatory issues. Ruo enjoys working with trustees of both domestic and international charities and helping them to prepare their annual returns. She also has experience dealing with trustees and legacy disputes as well as ecclesiastical law matters.

Ruo currently leads on the Charity Law Conversation series, part of the firm’s Legal Perspective podcast, where she has regular and informative discussions with various representatives of the third sector, as well as with experts to explore current developments. In her previous role, Ruo also had significant podcast recording experience and had released 25 podcast episodes, featuring interviews with chief executives, trustees and representatives of charities and social enterprises both in the UK and abroad, exploring current trends and topical issues in philanthropy and civil society.

Recent experience

• Setting up and registering UK’s first mobile phone museum charity with the Charity Commission of England and Wales.
• Advising and incorporating multiple corporate foundations for local businesses.
• Restructuring a large national social enterprise to a community interest company.
• Providing advice and forming B-Corp entities.
• Working with the Privy Council to amend the constitution of a chartered body.
• Advising a faith-based charity on the disposal of their charitable land.
• Setting up and advising community amateur sports clubs.
• Advising a chartered body with rules on forming a charity subsidiary.
• Working with Dutch and Maldivian counsel to set up charities in the Netherlands and Maldives.