Oddly, I decided I wanted to become a barrister when I was ten years old. I’m not sure I entirely knew what a barrister was. There are no lawyers in my family, and in fact I was the first person from my family to go to university.
I probably had two main influences. In the 70s and 80s there used to be a programme on called Crown Court. It did dramatisations of mostly criminal trials, with actors playing all parts except the jury, and there were alternative endings, depending on what the jury decided. It used to be on before children’s shows, and I used to watch it when I came home from school. My grandmother was a secretary in a high street law firm, and that was the only connection to the law I had. As I grew up, I became interested in politics, leading me to public law, and constitutional law, and I didn’t waver from that.
