International Women's Day Interview - Jillian
Tell us who you are and what you do?
My name is Jillian, I grew up in Brechin, a wee town in Scotland. Spent most of my teenage years travelling around Scotland as a competitive dancer, gave that up when I was about 17 partly because I had a sore back and couldn’t really win anymore and partly because I knew I didn’t want to make a career of it. So I went to Dundee, studied law and then took another detour by getting involved in student politics. I studied law for about 3 years and found it really boring and dry so ended up taking a job working for The Scottish Parliament for around 18 months, before going back to Dundee to finish my law degree. If I hadn’t taken that time out I definitely wouldn’t have gone back.
Once you finish your law degree you have to do a postgrad which I went on to do in Glasgow, it was around 2010/2011 the years when we were just coming out of the recession so there weren't a huge amount of jobs. I wasn’t one of these people who had a job waiting for me at the end of my postgrad and it felt like it took me ages to find a traineeship. Eventually, I found one in the firm I am still at today. I did a specialized employment law traineeship and I’ve now been here for 10 years. I recently became a partner in November!
In terms of my day to day work - everything I do is representing trade union members, working on employment tribunals etc. My passion lies in supporting women who are unfairly treated at work, which can be an array of different things - sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, all those kind of things.
I am also involved in many other organisations outside of work - For me, it’s so important that I keep all those things, I am a mother, a partner, a friend, an activist as well as who I am in my job, I don’t want to be defined just by my job and that’s how I ended up being involved with other organisations such as Glasgow Rape Crisis Centre & Abortion Rights Scotland.
I am so passionate about making the lives of women better and I’ll continue to seek out opportunities where I can use my skills and experience to do that.
It’s a total privilege to present arguments in a court on behalf of someone else, it’s not something that you do lightly, but for me, even if you don’t win, it’s almost more important that you’ve been able to give that person a voice and they’ve had someone stand up for them, quite often that’s the first time they’ve ever felt heard and that to me is what makes this path so rewarding.
Tell us a bit about the work that you do for Rape Crisis and Abortion rights?
With the abortion rights campaign during the pandemic we have been instrumental in lobbying the Scottish government to make sure that women who were seeking abortion early on in their pregnancies could begin the process at home and I think that just made such a difference because abortion is not only a right that is hugely restricted in this country but it is also something that has huge geographic and economic barriers to it. Not having to go to a specific GP surgery or clinic to take a tablet to then go home, to then go back and take another tablet, to then have the process potentially start on a bus or similar just makes no sense anyway. But I suppose it’s kind of telling when you think about our sisters in history who it took a world war for them to begin to be heard and now it’s taken a pandemic for the abortion laws to be revolutionised - even though there is NO debate into the safety of this medication. It’s safe to be taken at home but now the debate is on whether those provisions will be kept or not post-pandemic.
The other main campaign in the public domain is stopping protests outside abortion clinics. I have gone on a bit of a journey with that one myself, as I always thought that people should have the right to protest (an important point to mention is that it’s much easier to target women in England and Wales as they have specific abortion clinics whereas in Scotland it’s done in a hospital and so the protesters often wait outside our hospitals)
I experienced this when I went into early labour at 34 weeks with my son, I didn’t know what was going to happen or what kind of decisions I might have to make and whilst I was in the labour ward, I could see those protesters out of my hospital window and it brought it home to me that women were seeing these people when they might be facing a myriad of decisions about their pregnancy or it might even be taken completely out of their hands. They shouldn’t feel shamed and embarrassed but these people are not only upsetting the patients but upsetting the staff as well. From then, I’ve felt very clear in my position on that. So that’s an ongoing campaign to try and put some sort of buffer zone around clinics.
How did you get into what you do?
When I was younger I had an English teacher who I felt didn’t take me seriously, I remember him laughing at me when I did a talk on equal treatment of all people and that really sparked something in me to be a voice who stood up to that kind of behaviour. And with the law, I never thought I could become a lawyer, I’m from a working-class background and I didn’t know any lawyers, I also wasn’t sure if I was “bright enough” to become one, but I was really interested in politics and I had this passion to stand up for people who were wronged, so it felt like the natural path to go down.
Was there ever a point in your education or your career journey where you felt you weren’t part of something because you were a woman?
I can remember one specific example where I was working on a really complex issue at a client conference and just out of nowhere someone turned to me and said “All this stuff must be really boring for you, you know the law.” And I remember being totally flabbergasted, It was like they had made an assumption that I was there for something other than as a legal representative and I can only assume he thought that because I was a woman, he didn’t say that to my boss who was a man.
What is your industry like for gender balance?
I would say that the employment tribunal branch of the judiciary is pretty balanced but quite often when I go to court I will regularly be the only woman there, there’ll be a male judge, a male solicitor on the other side and me. In terms of graduates, I think there are more women now. It’s quite easy because of that to think that if we just give it time, things will become more equal but my response is “how many times have we been told that before?” Without mechanisms in place, then it’s just not going to happen.
The workplace was built by men, for men so it’s not entirely surprising that women’s experiences or anyone who doesn’t identify as a man, don’t fit into that.
I remember early on in my career there was lots of conversation about how I was too soft with clients “pandering” was the word that was often used. My boss used to say that I got all the easy clients but the reality was that for me- that client is the most important person in the room and that client relationship is the most important part of my job. It’s frustrating that that compassionate energy is often seen as a weakness when in actual fact the client is who we are here for so why wouldn’t we nurture a strong relationship with them? It’s an overlooked strength I think - for example if you compare a lawyer who has no apparent client management skills but can quote the law verbatim, they are often seen as a better lawyer and those softer skills are overlooked. I just think that is a really interesting comparison and I find it very frustrating.
I think of my mum and dad and how terrified they’d be if they had to go to court and some lawyer will just show up on the day, whereas I think it’s so important to meet them beforehand and ensure they feel supported - and that’s seen as me pandering. As though taking steps to support others is some sort of weakness. That comes from our glorification of those typically more “masculine” skills and energies when in reality we need both.
Has there ever been a time at work when you were reminded that you were a woman in a negative way? Any moment where you were made to feel self-conscious about your gender?
In my daily work experience, I just have this overarching question of what would that be like if I was a man? Clients complaining is a good example- I find that I will tend to self reflect and wonder how I could do better whereas the men in the office tend to be able to dismiss it much more easily. I think that’s because we are taught to see self-reflective or self-questioning behaviour as a weakness, we’re supposed to just brush it off and not show any emotion and that toxic masculinity has impacted us all. It’s still much more acceptable for one of the male lawyers to punch a filing cabinet when they are upset than it is for me to cry over something. One is seen as a strength and one as a weakness and it highlights that there is just still so much work to be done.
If women were in charge or given equal status, what would be the main thing that you would love to see changed?
For me - better maternity pay and I think once and only once we have that - proper funded paternity leave for men. That’s the only way we are going to break the cycle that discriminates against women of a certain age where it’s likely they will at some point have a baby which affects their value to a company. Particularly around the paternity leave thing - it requires buy-in from men. Men in senior roles need to take their paternity leave and show that it’s a valued and needed part of an employment contract. However, we have to be careful that we don’t prioritise paternity first and take another thing away from women. Maternity leave and pay must be better first.
Do you have any nuggets of advice that you’d love to give to your younger self or young women like you about to embark on a similar journey?
I think the fundamental one is that “it’s probably not you” and “you’re not alone”. I spent so long worrying that things were my fault or all happening because of me and thinking that I was the only one who felt the way I did, what I’ve learned with life experience is, that it wasn’t the case. Next, I’d say be yourself, show up as you and never, ever underestimate the difference you can make.