S12, Ep7 How to Fail: Lady Hale

Well this one was quite intimidating, to be honest. My guest this week is Baroness Hale of Richmond, one of this country's finest legal minds. She was the first woman President of the supreme court, the youngest and first female commissioner to be appointed to the Law Commission and has been dubbed the Beyoncé of the legal world owing to her popularity among young law students.

But you might just know her best for her spider brooch, which she wore in 2019 while delivering a stinging ruling finding Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament to be unlawful. Her memoir, Spider Woman: A Life, has just been published.

Lady Hale joins me to talk about battling sexism in law, her failures at school and academia, the loss of her father at a young age, the death of her beloved husband during Covid and her 'abject failure to knit a dishcloth aged five.' Along the way we cover, Beyonce, spiders, Ian McEwan and much, much more.

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Spider Woman: A Life is out now. You can order your copy here.

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My new novel, Magpie, is out now. You can order it here.

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How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. To contact us, email howtofailpod@gmail.com

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