Rebecca Wade KC – St Philips Chambers, Birmingham

In early 2023, Rebecca Wade KC took silk, becoming one of just three female criminal silks in Birmingham.  Rebecca’s practice centres on serious crime, with a particular emphasis on homicide and serious sexual offences, both regionally and nationally. The cases in which she was instructed invariably involved complicated issues of law and fact and the most vulnerable people in society and frequently attracted significant media interest.

The daughter of an English builder and a Brazilian mother, Rebecca’s career was prompted by her father after he saw silks portrayed in dramas.  Tragically, Rebecca’s dad died when she was twelve-years old, and her mother became a single-parent – with all the many financial and other struggles which that entailed.

Rebecca got work experience with the CPS which took her to the Birmingham Crown Court, which she also later observed from the gallery when in the 6^th form.  She was not at all deterred by family members who suggested that an advocacy career was not for “people like us with no links to the legal profession”.   Rebecca’s legal studies was only possible through large student loans. It was all “a bit of a hard slog”, financially, she said.

Rebecca did a mixed common law pupillage, but “it was always crime for me.” She never really aspired to being a silk in the early stages, but in more recent years she found herself increasingly in demand for the most difficult and complex cases. And Rebecca’s colleagues, and the judges which she regularly appeared before, were beginning to suggest that she should think seriously about applying for silk.

Having done her pupillage and begun her tenancy in Northampton, Rebecca found her practice there moving more towards family law.  But on moving back to Birmingham she was able to develop into her first love, in criminal cases.  There was another reason to move back to her home city – the birth of her nephew.  Initially content to work on mainly sexual crimes. Rebecca later sought a wider portfolio of cases and broadened her practice into homicide. Without this development to a 50:50 serious sexual crime/ homicide practice, she would not have been as well placed to apply for silk.   An advantage of working in the provinces was that a relatively small number of senior judges got to know your work extremely well. One such important case was a fatal shooting trial where no silk certificate had been issued, meant that she led another barrister defending the client in a legally highly complex case, of just the sort essential for her silk application.

Rebecca devised a three-year plan for her silk application.  It was a demanding process, entailing considerable time and expense, and stress. It was essential that you had the right sort of “substantial cases” and the necessary evidence from the relevant time period, she would urge future applicants.

Rebecca intended only applying for KC once – so, she gave it her very best shot.  It was a long over two months wait between her interview and learning of the outcome of her KC application, and when Rebecca learned of her success, she was overwhelmed; and added, “I am still pinching myself!”

The KC ceremony was a wonderful occasion which Rebecca shared with her closest loved ones.  She had a poignant regret and that was that the letters QC – which had been her father’s aspiration for her – would not be the ones she would have after her name. But Rebecca knew that her father would have been just as proud of his daughter on her elevation to one of His Majesty’s Counsel Learned in Law.