Orlagh Kelly: Welcome to the Get Briefed podcast. Today we have the lovely Nikki Alderson. Nikki, we're delighted to have you here. We're going to tell the audience who you are and what you've done. But before I jump into that, thank you so much for having the time to spend with us today.

Nikki Alderson: It's an absolute pleasure. It's good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Orlagh Kelly: You're welcome. So a little bit of background to tempt the audience — you are a barrister turned specialist coach for women. And I want to hear all about it — how did you start out at the bar? What is the background? What prompted you to become a barrister?

Nikki Alderson: I mean, it's a long story, so just settle in for this. I suppose it all began at school when I was considering options and so on, and in particular I think work placements have been really instrumental in terms of how my career decisions came upon law. I initially wanted to do journalism at school, actually, and I went on a work placement at the Sheffield Star, because I'm from Sheffield, and I worked with a journalist there who was actually the court reporter. And even though it was the reporting I was interested in, we ended up going to court a lot of the time. And when I spoke to him about what was his most interesting case that he dealt with, or what did he enjoy about journalism, he basically told me that his most interesting case was bus vandalism, and I was just like, wow, you have all these other cases to choose from and that's the best you can come up with? I was really underwhelmed with his levels of ambition and excitement in life, so I thought, you know what, it's the law that's been interesting me in this placement rather than the journalism. So I always had in the back of my mind at that point that maybe I would like to be a lawyer. And so I took a law degree — jurisprudence as it was at Oxford — with a view to keeping my options open so that if I decided to be a lawyer I could, and if I wanted to be a journalist, equally with a law degree I could also do that.

So then, in terms of why I decided to become a barrister — as I mentioned, I was at Balliol College in Oxford and there were a huge number of people who were wanting to be city solicitors in London, mostly in commercial. And a lot of it was about making a lot of money. And for me, it's always been about human interest, the underdog, and being the voice of the underdog. And that was why I was really interested in law. So it was no surprise perhaps that I then decided that instead of just following the herd, I would want to be not only a barrister instead of a solicitor, but also that I wanted to specialise in criminal law. So it was then that I came back up north and started in chambers — well, 1995 was my pupillage at Broadway House in Bradford. So yeah, that's where it all began.

Orlagh Kelly: Of course, anybody listening will probably know that if your classmates were heading to do commercial law in London and you decided to do criminal law a little further up north, you were not doing it for the money.

Nikki Alderson: Exactly that, and it remained so throughout my career as well, it's got to be said. So yeah, absolutely. And I don't have any regrets about that because all of the experiences — which I'm sure we'll come on to talk about — were driven out of a passion for helping other people as opposed to helping myself financially in that respect. And that's how I got into, later in my career, doing human rights work, which was actually voluntary, because it was the law and the cases that were interesting me rather than the paycheck at the end of the day, because there simply wasn't any — with it being voluntary.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, and so thinking about you starting your pupillage back in 1995, in the late 90s — what was the bar like back then?

Nikki Alderson: Wow, well, so different.

Orlagh Kelly: I say that as if it's eons ago. I hear myself saying that — it doesn't feel to me like it's that long ago. I was called to the bar in 2002, so I'm not much younger than you. So yeah, it's like a different world.

Nikki Alderson: Yeah, I mean, three decades ago — a huge amount has changed, I'm sure. I'm no longer at the bar, so forgive me for not being hugely up to date with how it is in terms of chambers. I can remember very vividly things like smoking — people smoked in chambers, in courts. I used to come out with some horrendous allergic reaction every time I was in the robing room, and I was actually responsible ultimately for the no smoking policy in chambers because there were chain-smoking members of chambers and that just needed to stop. And I was instrumental in that. So that was just one aspect of it. But also in terms of the stuff that you felt you had to put up with — which I know now is far less tolerated — in terms of bullying, harassment, things that I have subsequently written about in my book, Raising the Bar. I mean, even now, obviously, we know there's an independent review going on around those aspects within the bar, and it's still very much an issue, but I'm sure that those issues 30 years ago were far more prevalent — or overt maybe — than they are today. It may be that they're still as prevalent, but just perhaps less overt.

So yeah, those are two really negative things. I have to say, one aspect I really do remember with great fondness about pupillage was seeing gregarious members of chambers — fantastic advocates who would, you know, back in the day, boozy lunches were all the thing, weren't they — going for these huge long lunches with these great orators and being able to just interact with them and be inspired by them, on a social level as well as a professional level. I mean, that was a really great thing. And perhaps I'm glad the booze bit has gone now, absolutely. But the camaraderie, I think, may have changed significantly now, especially post-pandemic as well. But those were fond memories.

Orlagh Kelly: I remember being a very young baby barrister and being, you know, again at various social events and just understanding probably for the first time in my adult life the ability for people to be raconteurs and storytellers — that is so prevalent at the bar. And whilst we don't learn that anywhere, I don't think, through an academic career or professional career whilst at the bar, it obviously becomes an inherent part of how you tell the story and how you represent your client. And to listen to some of those QCs, as they were at the time, telling stories was really fascinating. And I don't know that I've come across that with any other of the professions that I've worked with or if it is unique to the bar. Yeah, it was good fun. I guess we talk about this a lot, but the change from working in chambers or in your workplace and moving to much more remote working has had an impact on the ability to have that social aspect to the bar that I certainly enjoyed a lot when I was a young barrister, and I kind of feel for young people these days that they don't necessarily have that access anymore.

Nikki Alderson: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right for junior members particularly — missing out on that is quite significant because it is, you know, an important part of your learning. It's also not just about the professional in-court learning, but it's also about the networking and getting to know people. And yeah, it's all very important. I know some chambers are ensuring that there are those opportunities, but they're not daily opportunities, perhaps, as they once were.

Orlagh Kelly: So you had your pupillage and you chose Broadway House Chambers particularly because of its background in crime — is that right?

Nikki Alderson: It was a funny one really, why I actually ended up at Broadway House. I mean, it was one of those where — I'm just trying to think — the atmosphere in chambers was very different. I went for a lot of interviews at Leeds Chambers as well. And it was actually — I was given offers by Leeds Chambers, but the Bradford one came in first as it happened. And it just seemed like a more down-to-earth set, much more friendly people. I think that's still actually its reputation, even however many years on. And I was glad to be joining that kind of set at that time because I was coming to a new area as well. So it was really important — I was from Sheffield, so moving to Bradford was completely new to me. And I was glad that people were very accommodating and welcoming as well.

Yeah, and then eventually chambers — I can't remember when it was — they also got a presence in Leeds. In any event, there was really very little difference between practising in Bradford or in Leeds because I was working between those two court centres very regularly anyway. But crime was — because of my interest in human beings, doing justice, as you say, and being an advocate for those who needed a voice.

Orlagh Kelly: And so what area did you specialise in there? Where did you ultimately kind of spend a lot of your time?

Nikki Alderson: Well, because of the way that my pupillage was designed, the first six months was with a criminal pupil supervisor — I have to call them that now because it was "pupil master" in my day. And the second six was actually with a family pupil supervisor. But because in my second six I was very busy prosecuting in the magistrates, wall to wall, I actually didn't have very much contact with my family law pupil supervisor. It just sort of happened, as you say, because Broadway House in particular had a lot of criminal work and I just kind of fell into that sort of work. So I wanted to do crime and family, but as it was, crime was just really easy to come by and that's just kind of the way I went in the end. But over the years, forming a specialism as I did — I was a RASSO, a rape and serious sexual offences, prosecutor. And I did, unfortunately or fortunately as you may see it, get wrapped up in that whole world — that became my specialism. But I don't know whether I chose it or it chose me. It was one of those — certainly back in the day, talking about what's different now — women sadly in particular just get occasionally pigeonholed into that sort of area. For wrong or right, it plays into the whole gender pay gap issue as well. But yeah, that's what I did as my practice.

Orlagh Kelly: And so — I mean, I did a lot of family work when I was at the bar. It contained elements of, I guess, somewhat traumatic content, depending on what the case was, especially if the Trust were involved and it was about neglect or abuse of children and that type of thing. I had very little experience of rape or serious sexual offences. So I'm interested to understand how — when you're sitting reading a brief — does that feel to read that type of content, and how did you deal with that for something like nearly 19 years?

Nikki Alderson: Yeah, it's a good question. I think that, sadly, in that field, you become very desensitised to what you are reading because of the amount that you are asked to do. You are doing it all the time. And so in many ways — and in a horrible sort of way, I suppose — one case in a way blends into another. Certainly when I first started, it may have been initially quite shocking and there was a big deal around it. Even when I was back doing that work experience, they were saying, well, we can't go into the Crown Court because you're under a certain age, or there are cases that aren't suitable for you. And they were talking about the rape and serious sexual offences, obviously. So when you get immersed in it, initially you know that it's very serious. It's a really murky world.

But very quickly, in order to cope, you have to find strategies to do just that. And for me it was a lot around making sure that I had a break from work — and I mean that both daily and longer term. What I tended to do was, I'd be the one setting the burglar alarm at chambers, where I did all my work where I could. I'd finish all my work in chambers. This is before I had my children, by the way. I didn't have the flexibility anymore after I had my kids. I'd do all my work in chambers — I'd be the one setting the burglar alarm, walking out of chambers, and then thinking, right, well, I can now leave my work behind, even if it meant a late night in chambers.

Orlagh Kelly: So you really set almost physical boundaries. That's interesting — that's my interpretation of what you did. You had a physical boundary for where that content sat, and it sat very firmly in your workplace and not in your private life.

Nikki Alderson: Where I was able. But obviously you carry it around in your mind constantly. And in order to then sort of switch that element off, what I tended to do was — I'd come in, I would always get changed out of my work clothes. That would be another sort of physical separation between work life and home life, but also going to the gym or doing some physical activity that would just sort of rush it away and change the energy. But obviously you'll appreciate when I had a family, I was then coming home a lot earlier and having to work at home. And I did notice then that things were perhaps leaking into my private life a lot more — especially because a lot of the cases that I dealt with were involving child complainants.

That was really when I started to have some issues with the type of work that I was dealing with. I know that some barristers, whilst they have young children in particular, just simply say to their clerks, I am not doing that sort of work. I always used to think, we've got the cab rank rule and I can't really say no to that. I think maybe on reflection, perhaps I could have been a little bit more assertive around saying, just even for a year or two, I won't do that. And I can remember in particular a couple of cases that stuck in my mind for being really traumatic — but also one where I was with my youngest child at the time, and thought about a case, and just thought, I'm not sure about how I feel about these boundaries within my head. So yeah, it does play on your mind and you have to be extremely careful to disassociate yourself. And a lot of the ways I would cope as well would be to have time off — again, a physical boundary, as you say — working about six weeks at a time and then having two weeks off, one week on holiday. I often found that I'd get to an airport, go on a backpacking holiday — the antithesis to being at the bar — and when I got to the airport, put my bag on the carousel to be checked in, it just felt like a big release. And I was then able to sort of be the real me, or the holiday me, not the professional me.

Orlagh Kelly: Like two personas that you're able to move into. That's really interesting. I don't have any expertise in this at all, but just from a perspective of having dealt with cases whilst I was practising that had levels of trauma within them and traumatic content, I certainly hadn't known until very, very recently within the past year that there was such a thing as vicarious trauma — which is a little bit more well known now. That is, for anyone listening, where really if you're exposed to traumatic content or secondhand traumatic information because you're representing a victim, or you're exposed to video or photos, traumatic images — that you can in yourself start to demonstrate symptoms of PTSD. I've become more aware of it, but I haven't become aware of a profession that has changed very much in 25 years in terms of identifying that.

Because I do love to hear people who've said, I'm not taking on that type of work. I now have kids and I'm not doing it. I certainly left the bar before I had my children and I'm not entirely sure that I could have continued on that path. Once I had babies and young children myself, it felt — I don't know. I mean, I think you're in it when you're in it, but once you're out, it would seem like a very difficult thing to try to do. So to take it that one step further and deal with the type of content that you were dealing with whilst having a young family — and it's interesting to me, of course, you're seeing a lot of women are in this area. So what we've got are women who have families prosecuting rape and serious sexual offence cases. I mean, it might be that you're getting some support or training from CPS or the people that you work with. I think that might be available now, but it certainly seems to me that you had to come up with your own toolkit about how to manage that and protect yourself and create resilience — if that would be correct.

Nikki Alderson: Yeah, I mean, when I was doing it, there was nothing available that I was aware of. To be fair, it wasn't like I was looking for that sort of help because I was coming up with my own strategies, and one was boxing it off. And it's interesting you mentioned about seeing videos and stuff. It's only when you said that that I recalled some cases that I had completely forgotten about. But it's one of those where, you know, once you see something, you can't unsee it. But actually I'd forgotten about it because you do sort of learn strategies to box it off. And in fact, I think I only first came across vicarious trauma — or knowing what it was — when I listened to a podcast or something which was an interview with the KC now who represented one of the James Bulger killers. And he was saying that it was such a traumatic case that he had actually accessed counselling services to deal with vicarious trauma. And it was really then that I thought, it's good to hear progress is being made if people need that kind of help, absolutely.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, that's so interesting. And so your career obviously went from strength to strength, but you made a change. Can you tell us a little about that? What prompted you to change your journey?

Nikki Alderson: Yeah, well, it was a very long and slow burn, I think I would say, in terms of the transition to what I now do. For those that don't know what I do now, I am a specialist coach for female lawyers, and I also support law firms and barristers' chambers to retain their female talent. But that wouldn't necessarily be an obvious switch. It all began basically when my head of chambers — when I was about eight or ten years' call — said to me, there's this Bar Human Rights Committee placement in Jamaica doing death row work, do you fancy it? And he knew that I love to travel. I mentioned how I often would go on holiday to sort of deal with the bar. And he knew I was interested in human rights. And I thought, well, why not? I'd already been on a Pegasus Scholarship to New Zealand.

So it seemed like a good fit. I wasn't sure I was going to get it. Went for interview in London, managed to secure the place. And very long story short, I ended up getting involved in Jamaica with a case where two men were charged with capital murder. And I was one of the first barristers on that project actually to be very fortunate to watch the complete trial. And over two weeks — never in my life have I seen a trial like it and I will certainly never forget it — in terms of inadmissible evidence going before the jury, allegations of witness intimidation, jury nobbling, even sort of judicial bias. I mean, the whole thing was a horrendous car crash to watch, and eventually it ended up with these two men being convicted and the judge putting on the black cap and passing the sentence of death right in front of my eyes — and I was just like, I cannot believe what is happening here. It was so shocking. But if that wasn't shocking enough, these guys then went to death row to wait for execution on a case where they shouldn't have been there in the first place. One of them, whose case I became really involved with, was then set upon by inmates — he was stabbed multiple times and ended up with life-threatening injuries. Eventually, having come out of hospital, I spoke to him and got involved in his case — looking at the appeal and so on. But it was in the moment that I saw him when he came out of hospital back to the prison and he was covered in bandages. He had 19 stab wounds all over him. It was horrific. And he just said to me, you've got to help me. And I honestly had no clue what I was going to do at that point. But I was like, well, of course, I'll do what I can. And so within that moment, I couldn't really think of a more traumatic case, a more intense case to get involved with. And I'm pleased to say that eventually it all worked out. He was on appeal, released and got out. But I saw him just before he found out that he'd won his appeal and he was saying, Nikki, you ought to write a book about this. And we joked about it, but it planted a seed. I got back home, got back to Bradford, started doing my RASSO cases.

I just had one of these moments where I was just like, wow, is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? I myself got some coaching because I knew that I wasn't going to be properly able to get my mojo back at the bar having dealt with such a difficult case — and to differentiate between cases and do the best job possible for clients. Anyway, I told you it was a long story. The coaching got me back on track. I was absolutely right: that's how I'm going to do this job, that's how I'll deal with the emotional side of it, that's how I'll deal with the time management side. I was absolutely back on track. And for about eight years more, I carried on and did all the things that I'd identified in coaching that would help me. But in the meantime, I kept hearing people at the bar — but women in particular — saying, you know, this job is relentless. I hate this job, you know, but what else could I do? And I just kept thinking, coaching would really help you. I knew that I could help those women in particular to feel better about the job, to manage their time better, to feel confident about making applications to silk, whatever it was.

And so I started to retrain. I was still full time at the bar. Then I started a family, I was doing guinea pig client coaching calls on a weekend and at night. There was a lot going on. But I knew, having reminded myself of the power of coaching back in the day, that it would be helpful to people. And so eventually I got to the point where I thought, I've got three children — I think it was on my third maternity leave — I decided it's a now-or-never moment: if I'm going to do this as a business, now is the absolute time for it. And that was in 2017. So I've been doing this for seven years ever since.

Orlagh Kelly: Wow. And so tell me a little bit about — you know, if I'm thinking about the fact that you specialise, for example, in female barristers and helping them — can you give me some examples of what you do and how that would help? I'm fascinated by this.

Nikki Alderson: Yeah, so I guess it works in two ways in that I work with organisations firstly — so law firms and barristers' chambers. They may want me to come in and either deliver a particular piece of training, or sort of inspirational motivational speaking, or be delivering something more short-term around, for example, career break return coaching. But I also work individually with female lawyers who might be, for example, wanting to apply for silk or apply to the judiciary, look at expanding their practice, looking at how their personal brand works, looking at confidence as well — especially as it relates to career break return. So there are lots of different elements to it, but it's largely either with a law firm or barristers' chambers as a legal organisation, or individuals that I help on a one-to-one basis. So yeah, that's the kind of work I do.

And I've written a book, Raising the Bar: Empowering Female Lawyers Through Coaching. It gives lots of the tools that I would use with clients about identifying your goal, breaking it down into smaller steps to identify how it is you get there. It might be quite simple things really, but things that busy, high-flying lawyers don't often tend to focus on. I used to back in the day have a — what do they call them? — practice development meeting, it was called. I'd have one of those annually, have a bit of a chat with the clerk. Well, there's been no complaints about you, so everything's fine. And that'd be about it. And I'd be like, right. OK, well, what about the fact I want to do more defence work or more prosecuting?

It was just a bit lacklustre. And I think sometimes having a coach to get you really fired up about, right, I have a five-year plan here for how I want to come at my career, and this is what I'm going to do to get there — and then be accountable to your coach, take action steps to get to those ends — that's really what I like to think I do for people. It's tangible and it's results-focused as well.

Orlagh Kelly: I mean, I think that sounds wonderful. I'm thinking back to friends and colleagues at the bar when I was there. And I guess there's a feeling — a lot of feeling of achievement — in getting to the bar. That in itself is a big deal, getting the pupillage, getting your practice off the ground. But I do recall and sort of reflect upon the fact that really, once you got to a certain point, maybe seven to ten years, it was a little bit directionless. There's no — you know, where people in employment typically go for promotions every two to three or four years, that didn't really exist. The only thing that you could do at the bar was try to do more cases to make more money, I guess, if that was what you wanted to do — and better, higher-quality cases. But there wasn't necessarily a lot of ability to control where those cases came from. And then there was a pathway. My thought on it when I reflected and decided to leave the bar was: I can stay if I want to be a QC as it was, or if I want to go to the bench.

But I didn't want to do either of those things. And there were certainly a lot of people around me who didn't necessarily want to do that either. But linking back to a phrase that you said — well, what are we qualified to do? What can we do? We find a cohort of people that are very high achievers, typically both academically and then having started a business, who don't have any access to someone to take them out of their day-to-day and help identify opportunities in the future. And one of the things that I think is really key — it's 10 years since I left the bar, almost at this stage — is actually knowing what you want. Once you can decide what it is that you want, you can start to reverse engineer that and figure out a pathway. But it's quite difficult when you're in that environment and you're constantly under pressure to meet deadlines and to help clients and be in front of the judge — and you don't really control your own day — to have that space and freedom to do that. So I think coaching must be a wonderful opportunity for people to have available to them now.

Nikki Alderson: Yeah, you know what you said there — it basically mirrors my experience, and I see it a lot as well with clients. Because you spend — as you say — so long getting a pupillage, and then tenancy. It's almost like you just breathe a sigh of relief because you've got to where you want to be, and then all of a sudden, when you're very junior, you've got this mass of about 10, 15, 20 years right ahead of you thinking, well, right now I don't want to be — nor do I have the experience to be — a silk or a judge. What do I do? And actually having a coach will allow you to think, right, well, how can I fill in that huge vast expanse of a career in terms of doing things that are really purposeful — a five-year plan to silk, for example, when you get to that stage, or a five-year plan to, I don't know, doing a specialism within the CPS. I was a RASSO prosecutor, for example.

People applying to the Attorney General's list, for example. Now I've coached somebody specifically around that, who was doing a lot of inquiry work and therefore wasn't getting the exposure to court-based advocacy. And thinking about, right, well, what more can you do to get in front of the people that need to send you the briefs of the type of cases that you want to do? And I think actually — you've talked about that, especially nowadays. I'm hearing this from clients and indeed friends that still at the bar, especially the criminal bar, that the demands on their time are so huge that the idea of being able to spend one hour, let's say a month, to reflect on your career to date, your successes to date, and where you want to go — they just say they haven't the time to do that, and to do it would be indulgent. And actually it's such a shame because it's so important to have that time to reflect, to do a good job actually, and to be able to identify, well, you know what, I am working all the hours under the sun and this is not sustainable. If you don't have that one hour to reflect on how much firefighting you're doing in the month, it doesn't allow you time to say, now is the time I've got to put healthy boundaries in, to say no to things. Or, you know what I want to do? As you say, it's like a pull goal — I see where I want to be and these are the steps I need to take to get there — as opposed to a push goal, which would be, I hate the job, I need to leave now. Because you're never going to achieve anything positive in a panic knee-jerk scenario like that. That's for sure.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, well, I think it's wonderful. I wish it had been available at the time. I mean, I think what was available for me once I left the bar and became involved more in the startup entrepreneur world was that there are a lot of mentors and coaches who volunteer in that area to help young businesses. And so that's where I really started to see the value of it — it just didn't exist at the bar. It certainly didn't 10 years ago, but I'm delighted that it's available now. And I'm sure plenty of people will be thinking about, you know, I'm a little bit disheartened, disillusioned, maybe working very hard, but maybe I could work smarter. And a little bit of coaching from yourself would help them just unlock and move forward in a healthy and beneficial way. I mean, we'll include your contact details underneath the podcast so that people can get in touch for a bit more advice. And obviously a link to your book as well so that they can start to read up on some of the tools that you talk about with clients.

And so reflecting on your career to date — both the volunteer work in Jamaica, the RASSO work at the bar, and the coaching — any advice that you'd give someone starting out at the bar?

Nikki Alderson: Yeah, I think my advice is inspired by Baroness Hale, because I saw her speak at an event at Leeds University back in the day. And I've also just recently reread her book Spider Woman. And I think one thing that came across really clearly in what she wrote and talks about is how law affords everyone lots of opportunities. So when I hear people at the bar saying, I hate this job — what more can I do? — actually, think about the opportunities that are in front of you that maybe just aren't what you've thought about before. If I think back to being a pupil barrister and then a junior tenant — really, as I've said, the next step for your career progression is way down the track. And you know, I got an offer to do a Pegasus Scholarship in New Zealand for three months, for example. I then got this chance to do the Bar Human Rights work in Jamaica. If I had been absolutely intent on being a silk or a judge at that early stage, then the chances are I would not have done that. There were lots of people in my chambers going, you know, what do you want to do that for? Aren't you worried about stepping off the career ladder? And I was like, no, great opportunity — can't wait to do it.

And I really think that you seize an opportunity that's presented to you, even if it takes you off piste, because it'll be surprising what comes out of that. I mean, if I look back now, the irony is that not only was the most impactful case I ever did a case that I was not paid one single penny for — the Jamaica case — but also that experience and coming back from that experience is actually so instrumental in eventually, I mean, 10 years or so later, me leaving the bar. Why would I have not taken that opportunity? So I'm a strong believer that you define success your way, and that is absolutely the way to go.

I think the second thing I would say — and I see this, there were some stats about it recently — in silk applications, men apply when they are 50-50 certain that they're going to take silk, and women only apply when they're around 90% sure that they're going to be successful. And that's another example that we really ought to back ourselves more and be more confident to help ourselves progress. And it may be that you need a coach to help you get there. But I absolutely would say that, whatever you do at the bar, just back yourself. And also, if you go into something and feel a little bit hesitant, that's okay. If you don't succeed at first, that's okay — as long as these high-performing perfectionist lawyers, barristers, solicitors, whatever, don't think that that's the end of the world. Come at it with a growth mindset and think, you know what, that's just learning. That's how I'm going to broaden my horizons, my experiences, and learn from it as well. So those really are the three pieces of advice that I would give new starters, because it's easy to think of things as the end of the world and actually they're not.

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely, that's great advice. Definitely resonates with me and I would support it wholeheartedly. We've come to the end of our time already — I can't quite believe it. It's been a fascinating conversation. One thing I just want to come back to — excuse the lawyer in me — but when you talk about the appeal in the Jamaica case, was there any particular point — given the nature of the court system that you dealt with in the court of first instance and all of the difficulties that happened there — what went right in the appeal court?

Nikki Alderson: That is such an interesting question. Thinking back now, I don't even know if I remember all the detail, because I was supporting the lawyers who were dealing with the case. They went to the appellate court — I was doing the paper chasing, the supporting — so I wasn't involved in the legal arguments. But I know for sure that in the end, what they found was that there was not sufficient admissible evidence upon which to support a successful prosecution. And I suspect that that's why they got out on appeal. And what was really interesting about it was that unusually in the Jamaican courts, they actually said, appeal granted, free him immediately. They didn't even order a retrial, and often when that had happened there would be a retrial. So I'm pretty certain now thinking back, it was to do with the admissibility of evidence and the fact that there was none to support a further retrial.

Orlagh Kelly: Well, listen — you were helping change people's lives then. That's amazing. And you're continuing to do so. So it's been wonderful talking to you. Thank you for your time. I'm sure we'll see each other again. And you can give us an update at some other time. I'll talk to you soon.

Nikki Alderson: Thanks so much, Orlagh. It's been great to be here. Thank you.