Routes into law: seven stories for Social Mobility Day

The daughter of an English builder and a Brazilian mother, Rebecca’s career was prompted by her father after he saw silks portrayed in dramas. Tragically, Rebecca’s dad died when she was twelve-years old, and her mother became a single-parent – with all the many financial and other struggles that entailed.

Rebecca got work experience with the CPS which took her to Birmingham Crown Court, which she also later observed from the gallery when in the 6th form. She was not at all deterred by family members who suggested that an advocacy career was not for “people like us with no links to the legal profession”. Rebecca’s legal studies were only possible through large student loans. It was all “a bit of a hard slog”, financially she says.

Rebecca did a mixed common law pupillage, but “it was always crime for me.” She never really aspired to being a silk in the early stages, but in more recent years she found herself increasingly in demand for the most difficult and complex cases. And Rebecca’s colleagues, and the judges which she regularly appeared before, were beginning to suggest that she should think seriously about applying for silk. She was successful and took silk in 2023.

The daughter of an English builder and a Brazilian mother, Rebecca’s career was prompted by her father after he saw silks portrayed in dramas. Tragically, Rebecca’s dad died when she was twelve-years old, and her mother became a single-parent – with all the many financial and other struggles that entailed.

Rebecca got work experience with the CPS which took her to Birmingham Crown Court, which she also later observed from the gallery when in the 6th form. She was not at all deterred by family members who suggested that an advocacy career was not for “people like us with no links to the legal profession”. Rebecca’s legal studies were only possible through large student loans. It was all “a bit of a hard slog”, financially she says.

Rebecca did a mixed common law pupillage, but “it was always crime for me.” She never really aspired to being a silk in the early stages, but in more recent years she found herself increasingly in demand for the most difficult and complex cases. And Rebecca’s colleagues, and the judges which she regularly appeared before, were beginning to suggest that she should think seriously about applying for silk. She was successful and took silk in 2023.

I am the first in my family that went into the legal profession. Going into the profession with no background in the area, no familial contacts and no connections can be somewhat daunting but if anything I have found that if you have the drive and determination to make it in the legal industry, it all comes down to attitude, a willingness to always learn and to throw yourself into it. I moved from a small town in which the options of pursuing a legal career were somewhat limited and secured my first job in law following a work experience placement. For me, I went to university to do a law degree and applied for work experience at law firms in the normal way. Like many that go into law, I had no connections to the law – I made my own. I applied for numerous work experience placements, pupillages and training contracts. I was met with numerous rejections (often not getting much, if any, feedback) and accepted for some work experience placements. The key is not to become disheartened with the rejections but to preserve and approach any work experience that you do manage to secure like a job interview. If anything, I have found the law to be an industry in which others, more often than not, want you to succeed if you show you have an aptitude and enthusiasm for it – it is just about getting the opportunity to show that you have these traits. No one expects you to know everything from the off, it is how you apply yourself in the workplace. To a large degree, you make your own luck. I applied for pupillage.

My legal career started from a simple work experience placement where I was given the opportunity to work in two areas of a law firm for a week. After spending three days in one team, I was equally surprised and delighted to receive a job offer on the fourth day from the Partner in the team I had just spent three days in. I accepted the role as a Paralegal in the team and worked my way up from Paralegal to receiving an offer of a Training Contract. I proceeded to work at that firm until qualifying as a solicitor and then moved to an international law firm on qualification. After a couple of years there, it became apparent to me that I wanted more advocacy and although I loved the law firm I worked for, and particularly the people I worked with, I took the decision to move to St Philips. I worked with St Philips prior to my move, knew the barristers and clerks and created my own professional connections through ongoing work and putting myself out there at networking events and by learning and developing my practice. The overarching experience that I have had is that a lack of connections or background to the law at the beginning of a career can be overcome. It is all about what you are willing to put into it and developing yourself into a candidate that firms and chambers would love to have – and that is about showing your abilities in practice as opposed to on a CV.

I grew up in a rural area of North Wales where most of the population worked on farms or in the local factories. I lived in a council house and went to a state school where I was told “you will never make anything of yourself”. To say it was an uninspiring is an understatement, and I believed that for a while. From the age of 13 I worked in a fish and chip shop and earned my own money. After achieving little by way of GCSEs I left school and worked in various jobs until I decided to do a business studies course. That then led me to do a Business Management degree. Nobody in my family had been to university. I worked throughout my studies to fund it. I was the only person on my degree course to come away with a First.

I then got a job in Marketing with the Boots company because I had been working for the company part-time as a student. I came to realise that I wanted to do work with people and do something more meaningful, so I did the GDL conversion course part-time over two years, while working full-time at Boots Healthcare International. I left my job and went on the Bar Course in Nottingham and my colleagues thought I was mad. I had no connections in the law. I went for many pupillages and had no idea what I was doing. I realise now that the people interviewing me 26 years ago equally had no idea what they were doing. I didn’t get pupillage and so got a job as a paralegal at Irwin Mitchell in Sheffield. That led to me meeting many barristers and I eventually got my pupillage in Leeds.

When I started out, it was not the done thing to speak about your upbringing if you did not come from a privileged background and I felt somewhat out of place at times. When I started out, I did every area of law and eventually crime and family law chose me. I have focused on crime for the last 11 years. The one thing I have learned is that, in crime particularly, we speak to ordinary people off the street from all sorts of backgrounds every day, whether they are witnesses or jurors and that coming from the background I do, I am well placed to speak to them in plain English.

Now I am a Silk and a Master of the Bench at Gray’s Inn.

Your background and life experience are assets. How you use them is entirely up to you.

I was raised by my grandparents from a very young age. To support our family, my grandad returned to work when many others his age were preparing for retirement. I also travelled around 20 miles each day to attend a better state school because my grandparents believed that education could open doors that our circumstances otherwise might not.

Growing up, my grandfather always taught me that hard work, resilience and ambition mattered more than the environment you came from. He believed that your starting point should never determine your destination. That lesson has stayed with me throughout my career, and it is why I think sharing stories like these matters. For young people who may feel that opportunities in law, or indeed any profession, are out of reach, I hope it shows that background does not define potential.

I grew up on a large council estate and was educated at a state school in North Solihull. Both my parents came from a working-class background, with my Mum being a Teaching Support Assistant and my dad a Carpenter. I was the first person within my family to go to university and to consider further education; let alone to show an interest in working at the Bar. I worked alongside my studies in a jewellery shop to assist with the funding of my degree and bar school. I received a scholarship from my Inn of Court, without which I would not have been able to afford to continue with my studies. This demonstrated to me that there is help and support available to those like me that wish to enter this profession, and nobody should be deterred from doing so because of their upbringing.

Friends I went to primary school with are now shopkeepers, taxi drivers, in prison or dead. On occasions when in court, with a difficult case and a difficult Judge, I often wish I were one of them… or even all of them!

I was the first person in my family to go to university and recall the pressure of trying to achieve my ambition … of becoming a Solicitor. I had known since about age 11 that I wanted to enter the legal profession, but I had no connections to that world. Add to that, anyone I did meet, for example, on work experience placements, did not look like me or sound like me. It felt like another world, a million miles from my life in Birmingham.

Predominantly state-educated, both my parents worked long hours in difficult jobs, and for several years, my mum worked more than one job, all the time impressing upon my brother and I that education leads to careers, not just jobs.

Trying my best, I got through my school, college, university and Law School years, but always recall my English A level teacher asking me what I wanted to do and when I told him, he replied that he didn’t think I was clever enough and not the sort of job that would suit me! I do not feel I have ever escaped the shadow of imposter syndrome, but with each passing day, I am pleased to see more and more barristers at court who come from lives and backgrounds that reflect our rich cultural make-up, city and country wide.

Let me add this as a parting observation: for many of us, hard work and perseverance are natural bedfellows. I started my career as a Solicitor, gained my Solicitor Advocate qualification and then transferred to the Bar to become a barrister. I always wanted to be a barrister, but nearly 30 years ago, when I set out on my journey, there was no one I could approach to explain the process, let alone help me to that destination. The Bar is now made up of people who are not only approachable but proactive in helping anyone who is considering a career in the law, me included.

I am at heart still the son of migrants who lived and worked in Birmingham but was always capable of more.

I grew up in Nottingham and attended local state schools, then a nearby 6^th form college, before doing a non-law degree at the University of Birmingham. I then converted to law and took the bar course at Nottingham Law School, then securing pupillage at St Philips where I have practised ever since.