She has been called a ‘brave disruptor’ by campaigners and ‘rabid’ by internet critics. But for Charlotte Proudman, only one opinion matters: that of the women and children she defends in the family courts
At lunchtime, when she is working at her barristers’ chambers in central London, Charlotte Proudman, a specialist in family law, faces a confronting choice. Should she nip around the corner to Pret a Manger or join her colleagues at the Middle Temple dining hall? It’s not so much a question of whether she feels like a sandwich or a sit-down meal, but a more existential decision, requiring her to analyse who she is and where she belongs.
It is 15 years since Proudman qualified as a barrister, but she still feels a sense of alienation when she walks into the formal dining halls. “It’s largely a sea of male, pale, stale figures sitting there, all in their suits. They all look identical, and are probably from similar demographic backgrounds. As a woman, you already stand out,” she says when we meet at her deserted offices on Good Friday. “It feels like a pocket of establishment elitism. In Pret you’ll have a mixture of solicitors, some paralegals, maybe some judges popping in and out; it’s more cosmopolitan.”
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