From Bradford to the Bar: in conversation with Samantha Hillas KC

OAA:  We will be talking to various people about breaking barriers and turning challenges into opportunities for success, and there is no better person to talk about her incredible career and journey so far than Sam Hillas.  Sam, can you describe your early life and the community you grew up in, and how it shaped your aspiration?

SH: I’m from Bradford, West Yorkshire. My dad, now sadly passed away, was a scrap metal dealer, my mum was a housewife and I am one of six. In terms of our community, there weren’t many people who stayed on at school beyond 16. Both my mum and dad left school before O Levels.

I went to the local comprehensive school but when I was 12, my mum and dad enrolled me in a school their friend’s daughter attended –  Fox’s School of Commerce.  I think my mum and dad quite liked the idea of the discipline. Their friend’s daughter was a polite young girl and I was a bit rougher. It was a secretarial training school. The upside of it was that I did learn shorthand, bookkeeping and typing – all  very useful skills to have. The downside of it was that we did all those subjects at the expense of the core curriculum, so I always feel thick when anybody talks about science because I didn’t do any.

It was a tiny little school, but we had a fabulous headmistress called Dorothy Whiteley. Although the objective of the school was to create secretaries –  we were very sought after by businesses in Bradford, who wanted ‘a Fox’s secretary’ – she recognised that I had potential, and encouraged me to go to university.

I went to Bradford Grammar School in sixth form, which was fee paying. I didn’t tell my mum and dad, because I didn’t think they would let me.  I went for an open day, and then went for an interview. I then told them when I got a place and persuaded them to let me go. I did my A levels at Bradford Grammar School, then went to Hull University to do a law degree.

In terms of how it shaped my aspirations – it expanded my horizons, knowing that there was more to life, and that education could bring that for you.

OAA: That’s such an inspiring story.  It’s important for young lawyers who feel like they won’t fit in to hear your journey, and to understand that they too have a place in the profession. What were some of the biggest challenges that you faced in pursuing your goals?

SH: I think one of the biggest challenges was that those around me had relatively low expectations of me and I knew it. You can’t help but feed off that and worry that you’re not going to make it. I was quite young when I decided I wanted to become a barrister, about 13/14.  We’d had a fair bit of contact with the legal profession growing up, but let’s just say from the other side of it!  A legal career was not something we aspired to in our family. So that does have an impact in terms of the enthusiasm with which you pursue your goals. I do think things have changed.

But it didn’t change who I was.  I went to Bradford Grammar School, went to Hull University to get my law degree, went to Bar school, but I was still essentially that girl from Bradford who doesn’t know very much about science, who doesn’t speak with a ‘posh’ accent, and I had absolutely no connections in the law at all.

I have quite a funny story, which I feel bad about telling, but I’m sure my dad, wherever he is, won’t mind. When I was in sixth form, he spoke to a lawyer he was ‘involved with’ at the time to ask for work experience. I thought it was hilarious, but they ended up giving me some work experience. It was a solicitor’s firm in Bradford, and I would work there during school holidays. They were happy to have me, because I had those shorthand and typing skills. You’ve got to turn the challenges into positives, haven’t you? But it is perhaps  unconventional for a barrister to be to be asked by a client during a conference if their daughter can come and do some work experience with you!

OAA: Well, that’s your dad being very resourceful so good on him for that. Were there any pivotal moments or turning points in your life that significantly impacted your journey?

SH: Negatively, not getting pupillage. People always seem surprised, and I think it’s because I got past it and took silk in 2020. People assume that if you are successful in the job, certainly if you take silk, then you must have had a relatively smooth journey to the Bar, and I didn’t.

It had a really negative impact on me for a while, because I thought I’d done the right things:  A levels, a law degree, Bar school, and I just assumed that I would then get pupillage. I applied the year of Bar school and continued to apply for about 3 or 4 years after that. By that point I thought I was never going to become a barrister, and it was quite upsetting.

But, ever resourceful, after I was called to the Bar in October 1996, I moved back to my mum and got a paralegal job in an all-female practice called Jones Goodall in Wakefield. Oddly enough, that job came via the original solicitor that my dad had asked for some work experience!  The other wonderful thing to come out of that is that another paralegal there is still my best friend, Ros Bever, now a rock star of the family law world.

I now had a route. I could still be a lawyer. I requalified as a solicitor because the firm I eventually moved to had a ceiling in terms of salary, and as a paralegal you could only earn so much and practised as a solicitor until 2003.

OAA: Who or what outside of your parents, who would you say has been your biggest source of support or inspiration along the way?

SH: My big sister, Jackie, has always been a very enthusiastic fan. We’re very close and I am blessed to have her in my life, as indeed I am my other siblings. Then, when I was a solicitor in Merseyside, and trying to get to the Bar, I met a fabulous family law barrister, who is still very much part of my life, called Christine Johnson. Anybody who knows anything about the Liverpool Bar will know Christine Johnson because she is an absolute legend. I remember meeting her, and she said to me, “Who are you? You’re a breath of fresh air”, and it made me think that if she supported me then I could do it.

I’m now at St John’s Buildings  We’re a huge family team but I have good mates there – they are incredibly supportive and inspirational.

OAA: Did you have any mentors or role models?

SH: No, but I wish I did when I was going through pupillage applications, somebody who I could have spoken to about applications and whether I was doing the right thing.    I resolved that if I ever made it, I would be a mentor, and I now have lots of mentees. I always say that a mentee is not just for Christmas, they’re for life.  My first Inner Temple mentees –  Kelsey and Maisie –  are just wonderful. They call me their ‘work mum’, although of course I’d prefer to be their ‘work big sister’.

Then there are other people that you meet along the way such as you, Pelumi. We met at various things over the years and realised we were kindred spirits. When you went to the Bar it was perfectly natural to mentor you and I love doing it. Different mentees need different mentoring. Some need quite a lot of handholding. Some just need somebody on the end of a phone.

OAA: Have you ever had moments where you think ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, I need to speak to my mentor’?

SH: Yes, and certainly when I was applying for silk. I really ummed and awed about that. What encouraged me is the fact that I was doing some very good work. I was often against silk and so reasoned that if I was holding my own, then I was probably in with a shout.

Once I articulated that, certain people in chambers were supportive. Lorraine Kavanagh KC had achieved silk the year before, and she was very encouraging, and Sally Harrison KC is a real trailblazer in terms of the financial remedy world – she’s always been incredibly supportive.

I played rugby for many years, and I have a very tight group of women friends I played with.  I would say they are the people with whom I can be most myself – they keep it real. If they think I’m getting above myself, they’ll slap me down. They all came to the silk ceremony.  They’d never been to Temple, had never seen people walking around in long bottom wigs and buckles on their shoes. They thought it was hilarious.

OAA: I remember seeing you at your silk ceremony, wearing Converses with the buckles on them, and feeling that ‘this is somebody I wanted to know’ – taking ownership of who you are without pretending to be anything else. That was incredibly inspiring.

What advice would you give to those who are coming into the legal profession who might not have connections and question if they would fit in?

SH: The first thing to realise is there are lots of people in the same position. Many friends at the Bar were the first person in their family to go to university, or to become a barrister.  The Bar is full of people who had no connections and struggled to get there. They are generally the people who are now volunteering at the Inn, on Circuit, or who become mentors.

The other thing is not to worry too much if you don’t feel that you’re being your authentic self very early on in your career. You should try to be, but I struggled with it for a long time. With the benefit of hindsight, this is where I fell down in my pupillage interviews because I was pretending to be somebody else.  I would wear a stupid little suit and  heels that I would never wear normally wear, because I had a picture in my head about what a barrister looked like and sounded like. I now realise that they probably thought I was a big fraud because I wasn’t being myself.

I read voraciously, but I didn’t hear the spoken word very often. I never went to the theatre, that kind of thing. So I had quite a good written vocabulary but I didn’t know how to pronounce lots of words. I now cringe when I think back to some of my pupillage interviews.  I would try to impress them by using a big word and it was only like a couple of years later somebody else would use the word, and I would think, ‘Oh, God! I’ve been saying that wrong for years’.

What really brought it home to me was a wonderful EDI speaker, a young barrister called Nardeen Nemat. Her history is incredible, but that’s her story to tell. She did a visualisation exercise with our Inner Temple students, getting them to close their eyes and picture what a barrister looked like. Almost universally, they described a man, Oxbridge, posh, white, parents who were lawyers and the rest of it. And then she just exploded all of those myths and the scales fell from my eyes. I stopped blaming myself for not getting pupillage. It was down to that other pretend Sam Hillas. She wasn’t going to get pupillage because she was a big fraud.

I think the lesson is not to be too worried if you are kind of ‘faking it till you make it’ to begin with, that’s natural, but then, as soon as you can, try and be your own person. Try and bring your authentic self to everything that you do. When I’m interviewing or when I’m reading mentees’ applications, the ones you really remember are those where you can hear their authentic voice. Don’t worry that you’re not good enough.  Be yourself.  You are good enough.

OAA: That’s very, very powerful. How would you say that social mobility has impacted your family and your community generally?

SH: It’s now not just me! I have two nieces: Niamh Brennan  – a superstar – who’s at Spire Chambers in Leeds and my beloved sister Jackie’s daughter, Anna, also on the cusp of getting pupillage this year. So we will all be family barristers in the north of England together, which is wonderful.

OAA: It’s essentially cascading to your family and the legacy is continuing.

SH: I hope we’ll tempt a few more of them. Although if my lawyer friends suggest a legal career to their children they say ‘there’s no way I’m missing weekends and nights out sitting at my desk all day, you dull people’!

OAA: One final question for you. What future goals do you have? And how do they relate to your experiences of social mobility?

SH: Like most busy people, I’m spinning plates.  If I get through to Friday without dropping any, then that’s a result and I deserve a massive gin and tonic. I don’t have judicial aspirations but I want to continue to do what I do in terms of giving back. I very much enjoy my mentoring role, and I can see me carrying on doing that for as long as I’m in this career and beyond. Since I took silk, I have become more involved with the Inn, and with Circuit. I think it’s because those 2 letters are a bit of a superpower. They give you confidence. I am now the chair of Inner Temple’s Student Engagement and Support Committee and Master of Mentoring and that’s fabulous. I’m very involved with the Northern circuit – the best circuit can I just say – of which I am Attorney General. I give speeches at Grand Court when the new electees are elected to Circuit.

I have a particular interest in domestic abuse and that does bleed into work. I have been involved with Resolution’s economic abuse and financial remedy project, and in that way have become very firm friends with Anita Mehta and Olivia Piercy. I can’t see that ending anytime soon, because we get on like a house on fire.  I’m also a patron of Wirral Women’s Refuge. I want to continue what I’m doing and trying to do as much of it as I can while still trying to earn a living.

That’s a problem when you’re a ‘doer’ – it does have an impact on your paid work.  Your extracurricular activities expand until you’re doing more of that than you are of the day job. It’s about trying to keep the right balance.

So perhaps that should be my goal, trying to reach the right balance of extracurricular work and paid work, and also seeing more of my husband, Duncan.  He’s always been my number one fan and massively supportive. I couldn’t have done what I’ve done without him, but I’d like to see him a bit more often, and I’d like to see my family and friends a bit more often. That’s my goal – a better work/ life balance.

OAA: Thank you, Sam. Your journey is inspiring and I hope that everybody who listens takes something away from it. You are a true champion of social mobility and one cannot underestimate the journey you’ve had, and the impact that you’re making by making sure that those who come behind you know that they too can achieve what you have achieved. I see you as a huge inspiration and I’m so grateful for your time.

SH: Well, can I just say Pelumi right back at you, because you are an inspiration for me. I’ve loved watching your journey so far, and I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do next.