In an interview with Jenni Murray on Woman’s Hour, Judge Anuja Ravindra Dhir QC discusses her time at 7KBW.

Jenni – How easy did you find it as a pupil and then as a young barrister, in a profession where I suspect a lot of your peers were young men from Oxbridge and traditionally the profession is  male and white.

Judge Dhir – When I came to the Bar in 1989, most sets of barristers’ chambers were still getting used to having women at all. When I applied for pupillage which is the training for barristers, I applied to a whole range of sets. Some of them were the commercial sets and I was told by other students that the commercial sets simply wouldn’t look  at someone like me. But I did get a commercial pupillage at a set at 7 King’s Bench Walk and everybody there treated me in the same way as they treated the white Oxbridge males. I was surprised by that. My pupil master Gavin Kealey QC, who is now the head of chambers there, was the person who inspired me and encouraged me to stay at the Bar. If it wasn’t for him I would have gone back home to Dundee.

To listen to the whole interview, please click here.