Profile
Nicola Williams Chair of the Independent Complaints Panel, Barrister and author of Without Prejudice
Nicola Williams
I
was a little star struck to meet Nicola Williams in person. She was part of a panel of outstanding women speaking in Lincoln’s Inn which prompted me to create the Legal Women magazine. The event was a celebration of the centenary of women being allowed to qualify as lawyers and included remarkable role models from the Bar, CilEx, solicitors and the judiciary.
Back row L to R: Christine Blacklaws, Amanda Pinto QC, Master Karen Shuman. Front row L to R: Nicola Williams, Rt Hon Lady Arden DBE, Millicent Grant QC (Hon). Nicola exudes incredible personal warmth and is a consummate legal professional in her choice of language. Most recently she has been in the public eye due to her appointment as Chair of the Independent complaints panel (‘ICP’) run by the Portman Group. It is the social responsibility and regulatory body for alcohol in the UK and makes decisions based on complaints from the public, police and industry. Nicola says the role ‘hits a sweet spot’ of everything in her prior career. She has previous experience as a sitting member of boards, including the Association of Chief Executives, and has extensive experience of being a key decision-maker, not only as a judge, but in the role she held as the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces – the first ever Ombudsman in UK Defence. Nicola initially qualified as a barrister dealing with a mixture of civil and crime cases. This narrowed down eventually to defence of serious crimes only. She became a PCA Board member, a Commissioner at the IPCC (now IOPC), a part-time Crown Court judge and, worked as an Ombudsman, a role she fulfilled in both the UK and Cayman Islands. Nicola is also an author of fiction. She published her first book Without Prejudice almost two decades ago. It was recently chosen by Bernadine Evaristo, OBE and Booker Prize winner, as one of ten overlooked books which has been republished by Penguin. Penguin has commissioned a second novel from Nicola and the option for a TV series on the book has been bought. 32 | LegalWomen
Evaristo says the novel showed the tenacity necessary to achieve in the law, and I asked Nicola to describe some of the challenges she had experienced in the profession. Nicola emphasized that she is no longer working in chambers but nonetheless she notes the changes are striking since she qualified and they are changes for the better. For example, there are more women in senior and leadership positions. When Nicola began her first 6 months pupillage, the set she worked in had just taken on its very first female tenant ever, so there were not many role models available. Nicola does not ‘consciously remember having to pretend to be a man to succeed but it was kind of in the air’. Hopefully these days are largely gone, and Nicola adds ‘Law is hard enough anyway without having to put on a mask every day.’ The hours at the Bar are known to be punishing and Nicola remembers that it was extremely rare to have a whole weekend without doing some work on either the Saturday or Sunday. It means that there needs to be careful consideration of what suits your life; that includes thinking about childcare and responsibilities for older people. Nicola notes that this is important for everyone to assess but at the moment culturally ‘the burden still falls more on women’s shoulders than men’s irrespective of profession’. Nicola recognises there is far greater understanding about this impact on women’s lives but as with all society, misogyny is not totally irradicated from the legal profession. Without Prejudice clearly references some of the challenges a barrister might encounter due to ethnicity. Although Nicola left practice 20 years ago, she recalls some well-meaning campaigns encouraging people of colour to apply for silk and the judiciary, but they did not address the real issues. She says the current system of exams required for the judiciary is important so there is a clear objective stance; if you get through that stage then, regardless of your individual characteristics, you can be confident and everyone else knows, that you were in the top 10% otherwise you cannot progress to the next stage. Nicola had no mentors or sponsors as such in the early part of her career but certainly there were people she held in very high regard. ‘I could have benefited from a mentor and a sponsor’ and hopefully this is increasingly available for junior lawyers. ‘When I was appointed a recorder, there were two people who encouraged me; one became a mentor and I would consider her a friend now’. Nicola has no regrets of going into the law although she is clearly multi-talented. Originally, she had considered careers as a UN language interpreter or fashion designer but ‘Law won out and I loved to debate. Loved the language’. She credits her mother who had been a teacher in Guyana before moving to Britain with her love of language, as during her pregnancy, her mother reread the entire works of Shakespeare! ■
Coral Hill
