Stonecliffe: Wellbeing priority
The first woman barrister at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to take silk, and only the fourth person at the CPS overall, has been elected as vice-chair of the Bar Council.
When she takes up the role next year, Heidi Stonecliffe KC will also become the first employed barrister to be vice-chair at the Bar Council and, almost certainly, the first chair in 2027.
Ms Stonecliffe, called in 1996, specialises in complex, multi-defendant trials involving allegations of organised crime and homicide, often with an international dimension.
She said: “At a critical time in the Bar’s history, I will continue the vital work already ongoing to resist attacks on the right to trial by jury and the ability of all members of society to access justice where it is needed, particularly amongst the most vulnerable.”
Ms Stonecliffe said she would continue the “critically important work in respect of wellbeing and retention” at the Bar.
“There is much to be done to eliminate bullying and harassment from within and directed towards the profession and more to do to encourage talented individuals across all disciplines and at all levels of call to pursue a career at the Bar and to thrive whilst doing so.”
Ms Stonecliffe will take up her new role on 1 January 2026, alongside Kirsty Brimelow KC, current vice chair, who was elected unopposed as chair of the Bar for next year.
The other candidate for vice-chair was Stephen Kenny KC, a barrister at 7 King’s Bench Walk specialising in shipping.
In a blog for the Bar Council website celebrating International Women’s Day in 2022, Ms Stonecliffe said that when she first decided at the age of 16 to become a barrister, a teacher asked her: “Do women do that?”
As a pupil barrister in the early 1990s she said she was disappointed not to get a tenancy in chambers.
“Whilst devastating at the time, this setback pushed me to find another way to practice which, although different, would allow me to pursue my aspirations as an advocate. I became an employed advocate in a solicitor’s firm.
“In the early 2000s this was rare. I was one of only very few ‘in-house advocates’ in the Crown Court. Met with curiosity, resistance and, on occasion, naked hostility, I was determined to seek an alternative way for myself, and others, to practice advocacy.”
Ms Stonecliffe joined the CPS in 2006 as “one of several practitioners” from the defence Bar.
“Whilst this might not have been a popular decision amongst my self-employed peers, it was important for me to demonstrate that those at the employed Bar could compete with those in chambers.
“We offered an alternative for advocates, often women, who sought to juggle their beloved career with the financial commitments of raising a family or having not come from significant means.”
The barrister said she worked hard to overcome “unconscious bias” against in-house counsel.
“I prepped my cases harder, I stretched myself to take on typically ‘male’ cases relating to organised crime, I worked hard to demonstrate to the judiciary, opponents and other professionals that change was not just happening but that that change could benefit the profession by offering a viable, alternative career path.
“Very often I found myself standing in a courtroom of professionals, court staff and defendants, leading for the Crown and realising that I was the only woman present. I felt an acute personal responsibility to lead the way for others and to show what could be done.”
Ms Stonecliffe was appointed a QC in 2020. “Despite suggestions that it might have been easier to take silk if I were in chambers, I made a conscious decision to apply as a woman at the employed Bar, to show what could be achieved by others who might not think silk, whilst employed, as a woman, was possible or worth the fight.”
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