Felicity celebrates ten years in silk – Queen’s Counsel and now King’s Counsel – this week.
Called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1994, Felicity took silk in 2014. On that occasion in 2014, she wrote:
‘It may never happen but it is wonderful when it does. The selection is gruelling and rigorous … After a year of waiting, notification of appointment for me came by email and it took a while to find my glasses before I could celebrate’
Felicity’s ‘silks day’ was a ceremony at Westminster before The Lord Chancellor and another at the Royal Courts of Justice before the Lord Chief Justice and all the presiders.
‘I was initially skeptical about the day. It is very elitist and prohibitively expensive for legal aid barristers but in the end it was an occasion I will never forget and I am glad they let a woman, born in Dagenham, into the establishment.’
Felicity notes that the day is really for your family ‘who support your really quire bonkers and hectic career’. 2014-Felicity hoped that the fact that she got there with ‘marvellous children in tow’ would inspire all the ‘legal mums to stick to it and shine’.
2024-Felicity is still hoping to inspire and support women at the Bar, and, as she noted in her John Bray Oration recently:
The fact that it is tough for a woman to succeed at the Bar, in my opinion is inextricably linked to the general failure of the criminal justice system. It is not because we choose to have children or not.
