In her career in law, spanning over 40 years, Gillian Howard has fearlessly taken on some of the world’s largest companies in epic ‘David & Goliath’ style legal battles.
Tales of An Employment Lawyer shares Gillian’s fascinating raft of shocking, inspiring and sometimes bizarre real-life stories.
We catch up with Gillian Howard for a chat…
What inspired you to write a book about some of your cases?
My clients inspired me to write the first book about my cases. I have had such an interesting and varied career with such fascinating cases where I have had to use all my ingenuity and courage and fight to get justice for my clients. I knew that other lawyers and members of the general public would be interested to see how lawyers really fight for their clients – some above board and in a correct and decent manner and others lying, cheating and trying to deceive. They all get caught out in the end!
Supporting clients in emotional and stressful situations and in high-stress courtroom situations must be challenging, do you tend to take work home with you both literally and emotionally? And how (ifever) do you switch off?
I do take work “home” albeit I have a very lovely office at the bottom of my garden so I can walk to my office and then go home at night !I do switch off and have learnt how to do so because otherwise I would not be able to function or advise clients. So, I relax by going to concerts, the theatre, ballet and opera and we go away a lot – to Majorca; New York and Israel. And as I work for myself, I take days off to go to exhibitions and meet friends, and I work pro bono for two charities.
One of your cases was made into a TV show, Sex The City & Me, how did it feel to be played by Sarah Lancashire and did you enjoy being an advisor on the show?
I loved being played by Sarah Lancashire as she is a fantastic actor. I loved being involved in the writing, making and production and filming of the docu-drama. It is a completely different genre for me as I write and have made training films with Video Arts (Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn and John Cleese) but this was a very different medium for me.
What would you say has been your most challenging case to date, or the one that made the biggest impression on you?* (*that you are able to speak about)
The case in my book that I called Alice’s Tale, which for her was most traumatic and made me very upset for her – even though we got a great result.
When you have downtime what kind of books and films do you enjoy reading/watching?
I love travel books; crime thrillers especially Lynda La Plante (just allows me to switch off and read about other strong women); romantic novels and spy thrillers (John Le Carre and Ben Macintyre); biographies and autobiographies and films about ‘real life’ eg the Second World War; Spies; historical events and current affairs and documentaries (one of the best I’ve seen was “The Price of Everything” about the art world in the USA) and that wonderful film “Women in Gold” with Helen Mirren.
Gillian Howard’s book Secrets & Lies Tales of An Employment Lawyer is Out Now
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
