• Gareth Peirce

    Indubitably one of the most enigmatic and fascinating characters in the legal world, there are many more questions pertaining to Peirce than there are answers. Why did she change her [...]

  • Ada Summers

    Ada Summers was the first female magistrate, one of the first women in England to become a Justice of the Peace and was the first female councillor, mayor and freeman [...]

  • Moira Gilmour

    The late Moira Gilmour’s remarkable achievements in the legal profession are made all the more laudable by the atypicality of her background. Born to shopkeeper parents and granddaughter to coal [...]

  • Gwyneth Bebb

    Gwyneth Bebb was a plaintiff in the famous Bebb v Law Society case of 1913, which was an attempt by Bebb and others to open the legal profession to women [...]

  • Rose Heilbron

    The late Dame Rose Heilbron’s remarkable catalogue of firsts reads like a record book: her career was truly unprecedented.  She was one of the first women to receive a first [...]

  • Cornelia Sorabji

    Cornelia Sorabji was the first woman to ever sit the Bachelor of Civil Laws exam at Oxford University. Born in Bengal in 1866, Cornelia achieved the unfathomable, becoming the first [...]

  • Louise Arbour

    Louise Arbour’s list of honours and awards is staggering, and rightly so. Her long and distinguished career began in academia: following her graduation from the Université de Montréal where she [...]

  • Ivy Williams

    Dr Ivy Williams was the first woman to be called to the English Bar on the 10th May 1922, although she never practised as a barrister. Born in 1877 in [...]

  • Clarissa Dickson Wright

    Before rising to fame as a celebrity chef, Clarissa Dickson Wright was a barrister. There are many legends surrounding her time at the Bar, none more colourful than her impromptu [...]