Lawyer Monthly - Women In Law Special Edition

WOMEN IN LAW EDITION LAWYER MONTHLY 81 don’t recall having any doubt that becoming a lawyer was achievable – back then, being a woman wasn’t something that I even considered could be an obstacle. Perhaps that’s because I was lucky enough to be raised by a staunchly feminist mother who had her own successful career and both parents who believed I could do anything I put my mind to. Fast forward a decade and I’d studied law, watched far too many episodes of ‘This Life’ and remained determined to be a criminal lawyer. The first day of my much sought after training contract brought me down to earth with a ump. I learned that I would spend my first six months in ‘Wills and Probate’. My first task was to go to a recently deceased elderly client’s home, and as the firm were executors of her will, sort through her belongings (including her underwear drawer) for evidence of all her assets. Not the great beginning I had imagined. However, I was soon thrust into the murky and totally absorbing world of criminal law, which I of course loved. After qualifying, I moved to London where I was thrown in at the deep end representing clients on cases including murder, rape and drugs offences. After my time ‘in the trenches’, I moved to a firm specialising in business crime, representing professionals – such as solicitors and accountants charged with serious financial crimes. I moved to my current firm as a senior associate solicitor four years ago and here I have been privileged to work on some of the most serious and high- profile investigations and prosecutions from the last few years. Most of my work now involves representing individuals being investigated or prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). My work is often high-profile, multi-jurisdictional and involves enforcement agencies throughout the world. I represented one of the defendants in the Barclays LIBOR trial and a number of individuals facing serious allegations of bribery and corruption. My work involves travel, I’ve interviewed witnesses in Nairobi and attended conferences and court hearings in New York, Athens and Paris. I was delighted to be made a partner nearly two years ago. Unlike many law firms, Byrne and Partners has an equal 50/50 split of male and female partners and we are led by a female Managing Partner. Throughout my career, there have of course been times when being a woman has made things harder. In the early stages, many of the environments in which I spent my time were completely male-dominated – police stations, prisons, courts and even the judiciary. But more importantly, the vast majority of my clients were men. This was a challenge at times. As a young criminal lawyer, I would regularly attend police stations in the less salubrious parts of London, very late at night, to represent men accused of extremely serious and violent offences. I would be locked in a consultation room (or at that time, a cell!) with an often highly agitated client facing years in prison. In these situations, I had to be assertive and absolutely certain of my advice in order to be able to quickly gain the trust of my client before going into the stressful environment of a police interview. I learned that the best way to do this was by doing my job properly – representing my client to the very best of my ability and importantly making sure that I dealt with the police in a fair but firm way. I never allowed the police to ‘forget’ the rules and was vocal in asserting my client’s rights. I had to be consistent with this approach, however heinous a crime my client was accused of and however unpleasant they might have been to me during the process. There’s no doubt this toughened me up. Like many professional women, I often find myself the only woman round the table. And many people’s perception of the archetypal lawyer is of a man. This pushes me to make the very best first impression and work hard to ensure the client has faith in me. Is that because I’m a woman? Maybe. Is that because I’m relatively young for a partner? Maybe. The top levels of law firms are still dominated by white, middle class, middle aged men but things are changing, and you can be part of that change. I