Who was Rose Heilbron?
Rose Heilbron was the first woman Kings Counsel (‘KC’, or ‘Queens Counsel/QC’ during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II) and the first female judge in the UK.
She achieved many other ‘firsts’, such as being the first woman to achieve a Class 1 degree in Law at Liverpool University (and only the second woman in the country to do so), the youngest woman barrister, and the first woman to appear on her own in the House of Lords Appellate Committee (then the highest appeal court in the country, and in that case, as a junior barrister against the senior law office in the Government!)
What makes these achievements even more impressive is the context in which Rose Heilbron lived:
She was born in Liverpool in August 1914, just after England had declared war on Germany.
At that time, women still did not have the vote nor the right to enter into many of the professions such as the law (these only happened in 1918 and 1919 respectively).
When she went to Liverpool University in 1932, there was only one other girl in her class, and when she first started practicing, she was told by various other legal practitioners how there was not much chance for a woman at the Bar as there was much prejudice amongst solicitors and barristers.
Rose wasn’t just a pure workaholic. She got married and had a daughter and became a role model and symbol of a working mother (something which was relatively unusual in those days for a professional woman). She inspired others, as Cherie Blair KC put it, to be able to have both “a fulfilling career and a wonderful family life.”
Relatively early into her career, she also began to advocate as a speech-maker on important public issues, highlighting areas of the law that needed reform:
For example, on inconsistent sentencing, particularly by magistrates, the disadvantage of having appeals only in London (which brought about a delay in appeals), and the absence of training for barristers on cross-examination.
Many of the reforms that she recommended (including on the above three issues) have now been implemented.
Rose Heilbron broke new ground at almost every turn, whether by contravening the rule that women were not allowed to enter court without wearing a hat, or breaking with the convention for KCs practicing in the north of England to move to London (which she successfully pushed back on as it would have meant relocating her young daughter and being away from her husband and his Liverpool-based medical practice).
I read Rose Heilbron’s story in the book Rose QC, written by her daughter Hilary Heilbron (herself a KC). It’s a great read and shows what an inspirational figure Rose was.
What can we learn from Rose Heilbron?
Whilst circumstances have improved since the middle of the last century when Rose was coming of age, there are still ways in which a lack of opportunity exists today for some, whether in the workplace or other areas of society.
We can all find ourselves in situations where it is hard to stand-out from the crowd and achieve our ambitions, whether of getting that dream job or promoted or breaking into a team.
How to stand out like Rose Heilbron
It becomes clear when reading Rose QC that Rose Heilbron was known for being an excellent advocate in court as a barrister:
As Hilary Heilbron writes: “Her fame stemmed not only from the fact that she was a pioneer with an impressive list of firsts in the law; but also because of her brilliance as a lawyer and skill as an advocate in her many famous cases. She was contemporaneously described as a ‘Modern Portia’ or ‘Portia’ accompanied by a variety of different adjectives, after the character in Shakespeare’s play ‘The Merchant of Venice’, reflecting the fact that it was as an inspiring female advocate of the modern era that she made her name.”
One example of this is a letter quoted in the book from Lord Maenan, Presiding Judge of the Liverpool Court of Passage, which stated “‘I cannot forget her voice, so clear and musical, in which was displayed her marked ability’.”
That she stood out in this way amongst all the male barristers (there were only a few women barristers at the time) is all-the-more remarkable given the prejudice against women and their voices that existed when Rose was practicing -
Hilary Heilbron writes how Sir Raymond Evershed, the then-Master of the Rolls (the second highest-ranking judge in the land), was reported to have repeated “the age-old mantra about women barristers that: ‘Their voices are not so good and they haven’t yet overcome the prejudice against them’.”
What is particularly interesting is how Rose went about becoming a top advocate. She kept a diary and notebooks and “acquired early in life…the habit of marking up books with comments in her large handwriting and underlining…”.
In her diary she noted, as well as the activities of a day, what she needed to do to achieve her goals, (for example, how to achieve her desired marks at university), things she had learned (for example, some tips from a High Court judge about the art of cross-examination), the books she had read and notes on her performance
In November 1941 she commented in her diary that she “‘had a splendid fight - delivered my best speech [to the jury] yet - slow, expressive with just the right emphasis with an opening prepared but only noted’.”
From an entry in December 1941 we read of a reference to a “‘telling off from Cassels [Mr Justice]...it will do me good’ and a comment the following month: “‘prepare cross-examination. New method.’”
In a following year she noted: “‘I think my speech went down well…I missed a few things out though. I must make larger notes’ and ‘my fluency is increasing thanks to reading F.E. Smith’s essays’.”
Rose Heilbron comes across as someone who, as Hilary puts it, was “continually trying to improve and hone her skills as a cross-examiner and advocate.” The author remarks:
“The public only sees the advocate in court, but hours and hours of work go into preparing for that performance. Rose had studied advocacy at length, reading many of the famous trials of the past to gain tips and techniques, as well as books on the subject, to improve on her own natural skills. Among her surviving papers on the Kelly case, for example, are manuscript notes entitled ‘Notes on the Nature of Advocacy’ in which she notes how one should approach different types of witnesses: the glib witness, the one whose credibility is in doubt, as well as many other tricks of the trade…”
As her career began to take off and branch out, she continued to deep dive into the different areas in which she practiced:
When starting out in the field of medical negligence, she “purchased a model skeleton and several medical dictionaries…to aid her knowledge and learning on the subject.”
For her speech-making, Rose bought joke books “which she would annotate according to topic...”
How did Rose Heilbron manage to balance work and family life?
I often find myself, when asked how I am, defaulting to an answer of “busy”. It’s easy to think that, because we live in the first digital age, we are the first generation to be constantly doing things and constantly busy.
What comes across in Rose QC is just how hectic Rose Heilbron’s life was:
There is ample discussion of her full agenda, which included travel (national and international), speaking at many events and appearances, on top of her being in court and chambers.
As her daughter Hilary puts it: “All these cases required detailed preparation, often travel and nights away from home and working long hours into the night and at weekends.”
What also stands out though, is how Rose made careful choices about how she lived her life, which enabled her to be both a top lawyer and an involved parent:
She employed staff: a nanny for her daughter and her own personal secretary, in addition to her her clerk in her barrister’s chambers, who also acted as a junior clerk - the secretary “came to the house to help Rose deal with her increasing volume of correspondence, her filing and typing…”
As the author comments, this all “came at a price, literally. She would say that most of her earnings were spent on staff over the years. Having live-in staff is a constriction on one’s lifestyle, but it is also a great benefit.”
Moreover, Rose eschewed “other hobbies” and had few other interests, particularly in the way of sport and exercise.
Hilary Heilbron comments how her mother carried out “much of the preparation for her cases and her written work from home in the evenings and at weekends” and “the legal vacations…provided the opportunity for Rose to catch up on all things she had not had time to do when she was appearing in court, such as sorting and cleaning cupboards, attending to the paperwork, clothes shopping, as well as spending more time with Nat [her husband] and Hilary…”
Rose had “both stamina and determination and…an ability to shut out the rest of the world when concentrating.”
How Rose Heilbron worked with the circumstances she faced
Notwithstanding her busy life, Rose comes across as someone who, when opportunities came her way (for example, when her pupil master had a car accident and was hospitalised and someone needed to take his caseload), grabbed them by the horns -
This was the case even though, at the beginning of her career, she lived at home with her parents and helped out with the family business.
Hilary Heilbron notes how there were times (like this) when her diaries show a marked decline in her social life because she was “looking to seize all opportunities that came her way.”
Whilst she dived deep into her technique as an advocate and as a speech-maker, she still had a broad legal practice and a varied the environment in which she tested her skills -
She had both a thriving criminal law and a civil law practice, and covered everything from personal injury and medical negligence to sale of goods, hire purchase, trespass, libel and slander.
And when she became more engaged as a speech-maker, “the range of topics on which she spoke was extremely wide, as were the different audiences to whom she spoke. She spoke on medical issues, legal issues, the art of advocacy legal reform, education, architecture…”
She was someone who continually faced new challenges and yet who eagerly stepped up to meet them.
How we can apply the lessons from Rose Heilbron
In reading Rose QC, one learns about a lawyer who excelled at her craft, who made careful choices about how she could live her life to excel in her chosen areas, and who grabbed opportunities as they came her way. I’ve found each of these elements of Rose’s inspirational story helpful in my own life.
Just as Rose did in drilling down into the details of advocacy, I have found it helpful to keep a journal and record thoughts, ideas, to dos, random notes, on all the different roles I play in life and the areas I am interested in. It’s both enabled me to remember things better, but also to see progress and development of thinking and ideas over time.
Rose’s story also reminded me of the words of former US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power who, in an interview I read, encouraged young leaders to “know something about something” and “Go deep and it will serve you when you make your choices about where you want to leave your mark.”
I guess this is partly what prompted me to write this blog, so as to be deliberately detailed about my interest in how lawyers work and to formulate my ideas in a more structured way.
As someone who enjoys reading and playing a variety of sports, I have learned from Rose to be choosy about what to read and in what I pursue as leisure activities -
My tendency has generally been to go superficially into things: to read a bit of various books and never finish any of them, and to skim the BBC website rather than read one article properly
Reading Rose’s story has made me more aware of this. I’ve also started trying to pick one sport to play a week and to do it regularly, rather than do many sports but only once in a blue moon.
As investor Ray Dalio is reported to have said to one of his sons, you can do anything you want in life, but you can’t do everything.
James Clear’s idea that life can have different seasons for focusing on different interests, is encouraging in this regard. To stop doing something for now (in order to deep dive and focus on something else) does not necessarily mean you have to give it up forever.
We may not be breaking new ground like Rose Heilbron did, but even on the subjects of how to achieve our ambitions and balance work and life, Rose’s story offers important lessons.