Who? Judith Seddon, 37-year-old partner in the London office of national firm Russell Jones & Walker who specialises in fraud and regulatory matters.

Why is she in the news? Represented Neil Entwistle, the British man extradited to the US to face charges of murder after his wife Rachel and their nine-month-old daughter were found dead at the family's home in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. The 27-year-old unemployed computer engineer, who returned to his parents' Nottinghamshire home the day after reportedly finding the pair shot dead, pleaded not guilty last week after voluntarily returning to the US. Prosecutors allege that Mr Entwistle searched the Internet for information on killing people and committing suicide days before the deaths. He will be represented at his trial later this year by public defender Elliot Weinstein.


Background: LLB at King's College London, LLM from Yale Law School and BCL (Batchelor of Civil Law) from New College Oxford, followed by Law Society Finals at the College of Law in London. She completed a training contract with Russell Jones, qualifying in 1997, and was made a partner in 2002.


Route to the case: 'RJW was recommended to the family as a result of our profile and general reputation.'


Thoughts on the case: 'On any view, this was of course a tragic case. My role was essentially limited to advising Neil Entwistle on the extradition process. The US now no longer has to prove a prima facie case in order for a person to be extradited, and none of the statutory bars under the Extradition Act 2003 applied here. As a result, the decision was made for Neil Entwistle to consent to his extradition. In any event, he was anxious to consent and return to the US as quickly as possible to face the allegations, as I said in my statement to the press.'


Dealing with the media: 'I am used to dealing with the media having acted in high-profile cases before. Over the years, this experience has taught me to keep a cool head so that when the spotlight is on, while I try to help the media as much as I can, I do so without prejudicing the case itself. This case obviously involved dealing with the US media, for whom this was a huge story. As can be seen from what has appeared in the press since his extradition, a great deal more prejudicial material was released than would be released in this country before a trial has even taken place. The US media expected me to give them a lot more information than I was able to.'