Gareth Peirce - Career

Career

In the 1960s, she worked as a journalist in the United States, following the campaign of Martin Luther King. Married, she returned to Britain in 1970 with her husband and first son, Nicholas, and undertook a postgraduate law degree at the London School of Economics. In 1974 she joined the firm of the radical solicitor Benedict Birnberg as a trainee, being admitted to the Roll of Solicitors on 15 December 1978. Following Birnberg's retirement in 1999, she continued to work as a senior partner of Birnberg Peirce and Partners.

In the mid-1970s Peirce supported specific campaigns for reform of laws and police procedures that permitted the prosecution and conviction of persons solely on identification evidence. Individual cases then very much in the news, such as the George Davis Is Innocent campaign and numerous others, led to the establishment of Justice Against the Identification Laws (JAIL), an organisation that Peirce supports. During her career she has represented Judith Ward, a woman wrongfully convicted in 1974 of several IRA-related bombings, the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes and Moazzam Begg, a man held in extrajudicial detention by the American government. In 2011, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, appointed Peirce as his solicitor in Swedish Judicial Authority v Julian Assange.

Read more about this topic:  Gareth Peirce

Famous quotes containing the word career:

    They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.
    Anne Roiphe (20th century)

    The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.
    Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)

    I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.
    William Cobbett (1762–1835)