Dr Judith Bourne, author of “Helena Normanton and the Opening of the Bar to Women” is an Associate Member of Chambers (non-practising).
Dr Bourne leads Law at St. Mary’s University. Before joining academia she was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, completed pupillage and worked as a Legal Adviser to the Magistrates.
Her teaching areas include: Land Law, Equity and Trusts Law and Family Law. Her research has centred on feminist perspectives on Law, in particular the legal history of first women lawyers. She is the co-author of two textbooks: Women and Law and Gender and Law, and published a biography of Helena Normanton, one of the pioneers of the movement to open the legal profession to women in 1919.
She devised and lead the “The First Women Lawyers Symposia”, an academic circle of practitioners and academics (both national and international). The purpose of these Symposia is to encourage accurate research into the little recorded history of how women became lawyers. In November 2019 the Symposia will publish a special edition of the Women’s History Review. It is currently publishing a series of articles with the Law Society Gazette, written pages for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and run a public lecture series. The Symposia will be contributing towards a digital exhibition with Inner Temple, as well as producing a children’s pamphlet for free distribution to London schools.
Also, in November 2019, Dr Bourne and Gray’s Inn will launch an exhibition on Bertha Cave, a woman who failed to join Gray’s Inn in 1903. She is also co-director for the Centre of Law and Culture at St. Mary’s, which runs conferences on current legal issues, the latest being the December 2018 conference on “Race: Why can’t the law effect genuine equality?” She is passionate about legal education, especially educational standards, student care, and staff development and well-being.