Power of Blogging: Judicial Careers

Power of Blogging

Judicial Careers

Lady Chief Justice Keegan from Northern Ireland explains that the judiciary in the whole of the UK are acutely aware of the need to improve diversity and have had considerable success in the lower courts but it still needs to feed through to senior positions (page 20). By publishing blogs, profiles and interviews with the judiciary, we hope you will consider if it is appropriate for you and gain some ideas of different routes to acquiring the skills needed.

On this page you can gain insight from Joanna Wade, a Regional Employment Judge. In our next edition, we will also be looking at the role of lay members of First- Tier Tribunals, hearing from Eileen Flanagan and Ann Crighton on their experiences. ■

Ann Crighton

Eileen Flanagan

Regional Employment Judge

Joanna Wade MBE

Joanna Wade MBE recounts her career in the Judiciary, which has relied on a varied prior working experience; starting with the excitement of shaping the Crisis Open Christmas, then working in policy, before running her own firm, to now witnessing the many catastrophic employment relationships, as a judge.

Starting out

It all started with the judicial oath: ‘I will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will’. How could anyone not well-up when speaking those words? I had not expected to feel both the pleasure and the privilege of being a judge, but I feel them most profoundly.

‘Judging’ was not particularly in my game plan, in fact throughout my career I was ambivalent about whether I wanted to be a lawyer at all. I had always been an arts person and changed to law midway through my university degree because I suddenly realised what a powerful tool for social change it was. Administrative law was riding high, and I was strongly committed to changing the world for the better, a modest ambition for a 20-something year old! Although I enjoyed my training very much, I never felt like a proper lawyer because I always saw it as a tool rather than as an occupation in itself and I tried several times to escape but found myself typecast. It was also a world I knew; my main occupation for many years was as a volunteer running the Crisis Open Christmas shelter for homeless people, I never quite made the break.

Maternity Alliance

One of my more significant bids for freedom was the move from the private sector to work for a charity, the Maternity Alliance, reasoning that I could take my foot off the accelerator a bit and enjoy walking to work along the Regent’s Canal. The plan failed miserably in that the charity relocated further away and I became hooked on employment law! The European Court of Justice had just decided the famous Webb case and, naive feminist that I was, I had never before realised that rights for working mothers were an absolute core issue. I threw myself into policy work, writing and training on maternity rights and emerged with an MBE!

Slightly on a whim, I applied during this time for a job as a fee paid ‘Chairman’ in the employment tribunal. Although there had been women judges since Dame Elizabeth Lane became a judge in 1962 (albeit more than 40 years after women were first allowed to practice as lawyers), it was still slightly unusual for younger women, and lawyers from unconventional backgrounds such as the voluntary sector, to be appointed. No one in authority saw the irony of my being appointed as a fee-paid ‘part time’ Chairman, and appointed I was, in 1998. We became ‘Employment Judges’ a few years later, and as we all agreed, at last our parents understood what we did!

Founder of law firm

There followed seven happy years in my own ‘boutique’ firm, which I founded with Camilla Palmer QC (Hon), specialising in maternity discrimination and developing a body of know-how in indirect discrimination. Then, one day, I realised that I did not want to litigate anymore; I wanted to bring resolution to disputes and I wanted, crass as that may sound, to be involved full-time in serving the public and delivering good quality justice. I was appointed to a salaried role in 2008.

Salaried Judge

I am so glad that I did not bail out on the law earlier in my career because being a judge is definitely the best legal job that I have had. I worked 80% of full-time hours for 10 years; jobs which are not client facing lend themselves very well to a variety of different patterns and so I enjoyed a good work/life balance as never before. It really is a privilege to be able to be guided only by fairness and justice, and as a qualified mediator I was involved in the early days of judicial mediation which is also very rewarding.

I have always found my colleagues to be supportive and respectful; I decided that it was important to be openly gay, partly (obviously) so as not to have to be secretive about my life, but also in the hope that I could be a role model for aspiring new judges. The Judicial Appointments Commission works hard to improve diversity in the judiciary and I am pleased to have played a small part in that, very mindful of the fact that not all ‘protected characteristics’ are apparent, but all must be protected.

Appointment as Regional Employment Judge

2019 felt like the right time to try something new and I was successful in being appointed to act as Regional Employment Judge (‘REJ’) in London Central, the substantive role following in 2020. This job has knitted together many of the experiences that I have had across my working life, starting with the terror and excitement of bringing shape to the chaos of the Crisis Open Christmas, through running my own firm, to the many catastrophic employment relationships which I have witnessed as a judge. The main lessons from all this are ‘don’t panic, it’s not as bad as it seems’ and ‘the more you respect the people you work with, the more they will respect you’. Luckily the latter is not hard because I work with some exceptional colleagues (18 salaried and 37 fee paid), all of whom are deeply committed to delivering high quality justice.

“…air traffic controller, sitting in a tower, making sure everything lands safely”

I have compared being REJ to an air traffic controller, sitting in a tower, making sure everything lands safely. Sometimes I think that I’m not a very good air traffic controller in that we have quite a few near misses most weeks, but then I have never sat in a control tower. As the leadership judge, I work in conjunction with the administrative staff employed by HMCTS and together we try to ‘land’ hearings efficiently and according to plan, and to respond to the hundreds of interlocutory applications we receive every week.

Unfortunately, administrative and judicial resources are a little too scarce at the moment and this puts our system under considerable strain. However, I am pleased that we are currently able to offer hearings in mid-2022 which is not too bad, and we have more judges being recruited over the coming year. Quite a bit of my time is spent recruiting and training new judges and non-legal members, and I also deal with complaints and respond to the many last-minute crises which inevitably pop up. Of course, COVID was a seismic crisis in many ways, and at London Central we had to learn almost overnight to run hearings remotely. The judges responded brilliantly and we have found remote hearings to be very successful, good for most cases and better for some although there will always be a benefit to in-person hearings in the right situation.

Being a judge is an immensely rewarding experience and I would encourage you all to think about applying. There is a profound sense of coming home, being able to deliver justice to people who need it which is what the law is all about; the youthful me would never have guessed that this job was the one I had always wanted, but so it has turned out to be. ■

Joanna Wade MBE

Regional Employment Judge, London Central