Obiter would highly recommend readers seek out BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives, which last week featured England’s first female judge, Dame Rose Heilbron.

The legal pioneer’s life story is examined and retold by her daughter Hilary and Cherie Blair QC, who look at how Heilbron rose from relatively humble beginnings to becoming a judge in 1956. She was elevated to the High Court bench in 1974.

Inevitably, Heilbron had to fight hostility from certain quarters, not least when she applied for pupillage to one chambers.

A letter rejecting her application was read out on the programme. It stated: ‘The other men in these chambers and the clerk would not welcome a woman pupil. It is not, of course, any personal feeling with regard to you, but it is simply that barristers have not got used to women practising at the bar and sharing chambers with them and feel a certain restraint and diffidence when a woman is in chambers.’

Thankfully, other prospective colleagues were not so shy. In the runup to the centenary of women being admitted to the legal profession, Obiter would like to hear stories about other pioneers (solicitors, especially). Please email obiter@lawsociety.org.uk.

 

 

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