Lawyer Monthly - Women In Law Special Edition

31 WOMEN IN LAW EDITION LAWYER MONTHLY occasion, I experienced that it was with slightly antediluvian clients. I remember one situation where I had a good relationship with the finance director of a construction company, and he said he wanted to introduce me to the company chairman. I went along to their offices and when he [the chairman] came into the reception area to where I was sitting, he looked around and, because I was the only one sitting there, he clearly thought ‘the lawyer is not here yet’, and walked off. Hilariously, when the finance director introduced me, the chairman’s jaw dropped open, because he obviously wasn’t expecting it to be me. It played into my hands because, while he was sitting there with his mouth open, I was able to take control of the meeting and the agenda. All in all, being stereotyped is relatively rare. I suppose there has been ‘banter’ from time to time, but I actually brushed those things off. A female judge [I know] has an excellent way of dealing with this. If she thinks a remark is inappropriate, she says: ‘That is a yellow card remark’ or if it is very bad, a ‘Red card remark’, which I think is brilliant, because it is humorous but it gets the message across. It is not confrontational and I think actually being able to cope with those kinds of situations does earn you respect, whereas ignoring it, or batting it away probably means you will get it again, especially if they are trying to provoke you. So you spoke about how you didn’t know that you could become a judge from being a solicitor, do you think the specific opportunities are aimed more towards men, or was it due to the fact that you were a solicitor? It was solely because I was a solicitor, not because I was a woman. I had imagined that this was something advocates and barristers pursued, and it is true that it has been, and still is, the conventional path. Solicitors are, I think, at a disadvantage because unless you are in the kind of practice where you are spending a lot of time in court or around court, working in that environment is not something that you will be at all familiar with and so I found that transition really tough. What is it like, going from an office based job to court? It is very difficult to make the transition, from an office based collaborative environment, where typically you are advising people, to a very isolated environment where you are in charge and you are making decisions. The transition was difficult, but ever since I have become a judge myself from an unrelated practice area, I have been evangelical about encouraging other solicitors to consider it as a career; it seems to have worked, which is what I wanted to achieve. Several people I have encouraged to take up judicial careers have done so very successfully. I have suggested to those that have So, you are a female judge in what is a predominately male-dominated area, how did you prepare yourself for such a role? Well, it is true that the judiciary is still predominately male, but my role, which is dealing with jury trials and serving as a High Court Deputy, often leaves me being the only judge there. Therefore, the fact that there are lots of male judges in other courts doesn’t really affect me doing my job. The time where I felt my presence the most, was when I first started sitting at Court and I went into the judge’s dining room at lunchtime; there was a communal dining area for judges, and everyone sitting there were all men. When I walked into the dining room with 12 men in it, they all swivelled their heads to look at me and probably thought ‘What is this woman, this solicitor with primary school-aged children, doing here!?’, which did make me feel uncomfortable. However, I have been in a male-dominated environment for a lot of my working life, because, as a partner in one of the major law firms, most of the other partners were male. I happened to work in the property and finance world, where most of my clients were also male, so I was used to it. It wasn’t a particular issue that I felt I had to prepare myself for, you just get on and do your job. Honestly, your gender doesn’t matter when you are doing your job the best way you can. Did you find that you were subjected to stereotypes in these roles? Not often. On the very rare Q Q Q Q “ “ Interestingly, I know from my work on the Judicial Appointments Commission, that women are typically more successful when they do apply.