>>438 The starting point is how many human rights lawyers can you name? Lawyers basically aren't world famous unless they happen to defend OJ or marry a movie star. Nor are they usually even internationally renowned within the profession. Their reputation will be within their own jurisdiction where they work (even human rights lawyers who appear in international courts will do the majority of their work in their own jurisdiction). So the internationally renowned stuff is bullshit right out of the gate.

The second part is that AC got a 2:1 from a not very good college in Oxford University, having spent her time driving around in the Jeep her parents bought her and hanging with the other trust fund kids. On that cv her now chambers Doughty Street wouldn't have given her the time of day.

So she went to NYC and started doing internships - commendable, but also only affordable to her because her parents are loaded. After a while she got a job in a NY firm, and started moving towards human rights law.

Fast forward to 2010 when she gave a talk at Doughty Street and the head of chambers was so immediately smitten he offered her an "extraordinary pupillage." Also known as a pupillage she didn't have to compete for on merit with all the other applicants, and, I hear, a major source of embarrassment to some at DS. It is a very right-on set and is meant to be all over the equality of opportunity stuff. She then got tenancy and did a bunch of cases where, as I said, she was the most junior of a team of barristers. They sound great on the cv but what they actually mean is that someone called DS and hired the QC and maybe the first junior, and then said "give us another 2 bodies". It says nothing about her reputation personally. She was not and still is not recommended in the legal directories as a leading practitioner in her field.

At that point she met GC and the rest, as they say, is history.